Roads
by Harold Trilby
Summary: A serial work of fiction set in the Mass Effect universe. Bionus Enrikian and the crew of the Astral Hind just want to live simple lives transporting freight and passengers. In this galaxy though, that's harder than you would think.
1. Introduction

Bionus Enrikian went over the job specifics one last time. Ordinarily he didn't put this much time into examining them, but this was a different job. Landing on Noveria was something you did not do lightly. Security would slam you in a cell if they even suspected you of breathing in a way that might affect the flow of business. Infractions like that were what Bionus hoped to avoid. But, as he kept reading, he became somewhat worried that doing so would require his crew to stay cramped up in the Astral Hind. The turian could already see that Kendo wouldn't be permitted to set so much as one foot outside the ship, due to a strict policy that prevented quarians not affiliated with any companies to enter the port. Renarra might not be all that welcome either, due to her registration with the Mercenaries Guild. The security appeared to frown upon such people. It seemed as though the only one Bionus would really be able to take with him was Colleen. Which served him just fine. She was a dependable sort, and wasn't too likely to be intimidated by these corporate types. Besides, it wasn't like they were going to be in Port Hanshan for all that long anyways, just long enough to deliver the cargo and check in on their next job.

After it seemed as though he had poured over every last detail of the security proceedings, Bionus put away the job specifics and got to his feet. He stretched, popping his shoulders and itching at a few of his scuttes. Then he left his quarters, stepping out into the hallway. It was fairly quiet, but then again, that was because everyone was off doing their duties. On outward inspection, it would appear as though Bionus ran a tight ship. But this was not the case. Among turians, he was actually one of the lighter taskmasters. He'd just had the luck to pick particularly hard workers for his crew.

Bionus decided his first stop would be the flight deck, to make sure that Naviss, his pilot, knew the proper landing codes and procedures for docking in Port Hanshan. He was fairly confident in the salarian, but it was his prerogative to check and double-check these sorts of things.

When Bionus arrived at the flight deck, Naviss was sitting in his seat as usual. The salarian hardly ever left the flight deck, though whether it was from a devotion to his duty or simply being anxious of the rest of the crew was something that Bionus had never really figured out. He didn't pry though. Naviss's peculiar mannerisms aside, he was a good pilot, able to keep the Astral Hind out of what little trouble came her way.

"Captain." Naviss's acknowledgement of Bionus's presence was short and to the point, like most things he said.

"How is it looking, Naviss?" Bionus leaned against one side of the doorway as he talked with the pilot.

"If meant in the literal sense, it is looking like a blue shift. If meant in metaphorical sense, Noveria is hour away."

The salarian was not usually one for metaphors, and tended to look down upon those who used them, saying that they were not being forward. Bionus simply abided it, remembering the salarian's skill and the fact that he did not want much in the way of pay.

"You know the landing procedures?"

"Went over them at beginning of job. Intricate. Will hold to them. No problem."

"Your confidence is welcome, Naviss."

"Not confidence. Knowledge of my abilities."

Well, it was clear Naviss was in a less conversational mood than usual. "I'll let you be then," Bionus said.

Naviss only nodded in response. That was good enough for Bionus though. He left the flight deck and headed for the common room. Hopefully he would find some of the crew there, save himself the trouble of tramping all over the ship to talk to them.

Kendo was there, both his feet on the table and the nose of his environment suit stuck in a book. Bionus stood opposite from him and crossed his arms, giving a playful frown to the quarian.

"What have I said about treating the furniture like that?"

"That it reminded you of your younger brother," Kendo answered, turning a page in his book.

Bionus nodded. "That's right, only you forgot the part where it annoyed me just as much then as it does now."

He moved Kendo's feet off of the table. The quarian shut his book and looked up at the turian. Bionus found it hard to gauge if the adolescent was upset with him or not. He doubted it though. Quarians were always respectful of the captains of starships. And even despite that, Bionus got the feeling that he was one of the few individuals in the galaxy that Kendo respected. Of course, he'd had to save the quarian from a gang to earn that respect, but it was a small price to pay.

"You know we're coming up to Noveria, right?" he continued.

Kendo nodded. "Corporate hot shot testing facility with fancy shmancy prototypes and enough black ops research to blot out a star. Count me in."

"Count you out," Bionus corrected him. "Security won't let in any quarians who are not the employees of one of the member corporations."

Kendo huffed indignantly at this. "Well, typical. I hope you _ho'shan does _have fun, then. I'll have a hoot talking to Naviss. As usual."

Bionus tried to hide a chuckle. Though Kendo's attitude was somewhat immature, he was usually the one stuck onboard with the pilot. His environmental suit did not protect against everything, quarian discrimination being one of those things.

"I see you hiding that smirk, Captain," Kendo said to the turian, pointing accusingly at him. "You'd better hope I don't wake up cranky and decide not to do the engine check."

Bionus swifly leaned over the table, putting his face right in the quarian's and giving him his best glare. He wasn't being serious, but he still liked to mess with Kendo every so often. "Do that and you'll be scrubbing the outside of the ship. In orbit."

"With your headcrest," Kendo fired back, not moving an inch.

Bionus let his tough guy facade remain a moment more before chuckling and slapping the quarian on the shoulder. "I'll see if they have any exotic periodicals for you," he said with a smile.

"That's cruel. For one, I can't even take of my environmental suit to properly enjoy them. It's not like I can just reach my hand down inside my..."

"Can't you discuss this another time? One that isn't right now?"

Bionus looked up and saw Colleen standing in the doorway with a somewhat disgusted look on her face. He chuckled a little. "The boy was just informing me of his difficulties."

"I find it hard to believe that what he is discussing is a legitimate difficulty," Colleen replied.

"That is unfair," Kendo responded. "You are not the one who is full of hormones that light up every time a good looking female walks into view."

"I was that age once too," Colleen replied. "And I controlled myself just fine."

"Good for you," Kendo said. "I however am not you, thankfully."

Colleen raised her eyebrow as Bionus moved back with an amused smirk on his face. "What do you mean?"

"That is for me to know and for you to stew over," Kendo said as he got up. "I have to run a diagnostics check on our systems so that we don't have security crawling all over our engines when we get to Noveria." He looked over at Bionus. "I'll have that for you shortly, Captain."

"Don't work too hard, Kendo," Bionus replied.

"Never do." Kendo left the common room, leaving Colleen with a very unamused look on her face.

"You take him too seriously," Bionus said to the human with a smirk.

"If I'd been like that when I was his age my parents would have busted my hide."

"He's not you though. And he manages to not let his attitude get in the way of his work."

"True enough, I guess." Colleen gave Bionus a little smile. "So we're setting down soon?"

The turian nodded. "You'll be the only one besides myself that disembarks, I think. There are too many potential 'incidents' waiting to happen otherwise."

"I follow ya," Colleen replied with a nod of her head. "We won't be long, will we?"

"Doubt it. If we are, it will surprise even me."

"I'll just make sure I'm ready to go then. If you don't need me for anything else, Captain."

Bionus shook his head. "Nothing else, I don't think."

Colleen gave a nod of her head and walked off. Bionus smiled slightly as she did so. Though she often butted heads with Kendo, she was solid and dependable. And quite immune to bullshit as well, something that even Bionus could fall prey to on occasion. It was this particular quality that had earned her a spot as his second in command.

Only one crew member was left to inform of the situation on Noveria. And, as soon as he thought of her, she arrived. Renarra strode into the common room as though she owned the place, a coy smile on her face.

"What's our ETA, Captain?" the asari mercenary inquired, leaning against the table.

"An hour or so, or so Naviss tells me."

"Pale face is humorless, but he's usually right. What's the plan for Noveria?"

Bionus took a breath. "I'm going to have to ask you to stay on the ship. Security at Port Hanshan is a bit tight. I'd much rather not cause any incidents that would get us in trouble."

Renarra looked as though she didn't like this very much. But in the end, she simply shrugged. "Eh, I get paid either way. I guess I'll have to bother Kendo to pass the time."

Bionus laughed at this. "Is that becoming your new occupation?"

"More like an inexpensive hobby."

"Anything you want me to pick you up in port?"

The asari thought for a moment. "See if they have any cigars. I have been craving some Sweet Williams's for a while now."

This earned a chuckle from the turian. "I'll see what I can do on that front then," he said. "So long as you keep my ship intact while I'm gone."

"Will do," Renarra said. She went over to one of the cabinets and got herself something to drink. Bionus turned and headed back to his quarters. In matters such as this, with corporate big-wigs scrutinizing everything, it never hurt to dress to impress. He just hoped that what he had was impressive enough.


	2. Freeze Chapter 1

The Astral Hind came in low towards the atmosphere of Noveria. The air traffic controllers at Port Hanshan picked her up almost immediately. Naviss transmitted the required codes and their landing schedule and they were sated, sending back the hangar bay number that had been reserved for the Astral Hind.

Meanwhile, Bionus was still looking over his wardrobe, limited as it was, trying to find something that would be presentable enough in the soulless corporate environment he was about to enter. He was not having much luck. His life as a freighter captain usually did not require him to dress to impress. Most individuals he came into contact with did not feel a particular need to be impressed by his attire, so he had never put much of a thought towards things of that nature. At last, he picked something he thought would be all right, a simple white suit. It didn't look like it had been worn before, at least. That had to count for something.

After straightening his attire and making sure he was looking well-groomed, Bionus stepped back out into the main hallway. Colleen was waiting for him there. She'd managed to pick out a blue shirt and black dress that looked far more professional than the turian's suit.

"I just hope they don't think you're the captain," Bionus remarked, looking over Colleen.

She chuckled. "Don't kid yourself. You look authoritative enough for them to not make that mistake."

"Shooting for a raise?"

Colleen gave him a sly smile. "Maybe."

Bionus laughed. "Keep talking like that and you just might earn it," he said as he headed for the common room. Colleen followed after him. "Why don't you go on about how I am intelligent and brave next?"

"The perfect dashing captain," she remarked with a bit of a chuckle.

"Ever the professional."

Colleen nodded emphatically. "Indeed."

"Quite right. Debonair to the bones."

"Now now. I won't lie for a raise."

Bionus pretended to appear somewhat hurt by this comment as he sat down at the table. "You wound my pride," he said with a look of mock indignation. "I have never been so insulted in my life."

"There was that one time that volus claimed you had no reproductive organs," Renarra said, interrupting as she walked into the room.

"Oh yeah," Colleen said with a bit of a smirk. She gave Bionus a funny look. "I would think that what he said would be a more grievous insult than what I said."

The turian held up his hands in mock defeat. "You win, you win." He grinned. "Know just what you win?"

"What?"

"You win the privilege and right of making supper when we get back!"

Colleen snapped her fingers. "Shoot. And I was expecting a raise too."

Renarra walked forward and patted Colleen on the back. "Maybe next time dear."

"I'd be more sympathetic if I were you," the human replied, still smiling. "You're eating what I cook tonight."

"May the Goddess help us all," Renarra remarked as she shook her head and headed back off towards her quarters. Colleen chuckled and sat down at the table, shaking her head as well.

"I wonder if I did not hire a madwoman as my second," Bionus remarked with a bit of a smirk on his face. Colleen just chucked at this as well. She was in too much of a good mood to let a simple thing like the turian's good natured ribbing get her down.

"Captain. Landing time in fifteen minutes," the voice of Naviss said over the intercom.

Bionus nodded. "Thank you, Naviss."

"Over and out." The intercom clicked off as the pilot returned to his duties.

Colleen paused a little at this. "He's happy today."

"What makes you say that?" Bionus looked at her curiously.

"He usually doesn't say 'over and out' unless he's chipper," Colleen said.

"I wasn't even aware that he could have emotion."

"You have to look for it. It's there, it's just not all that obvious."

"You can say that again," Bionus remarked with a shake of his head.

Colleen chuckled a little. "So what's our plan?"

"Well, once we get touched down and pass through security, we've got an appointment in the hotel bar. We'll meet with the Synthetic Insights manager there. He'll arrange for his cargo to get taken off our hands, and we'll also take on something he wants shipped to Earth, of all places."

Colleen nodded. "Never been to Earth. Ought to be quite the experience?"

"How so?" Bionus inquired, leaning back a little in his chair.

"Well, it's where humanity comes from," Colleen pointed out. "Part of my heritage, I guess. That's all."

The turian nodded. "I see," he said. "Well, in about three days time you'll be there, free to soak in as much heritage as you want. We've just got to get this Noveria business dealt with first."

"Right."

The intercom clicked on again. "Captain, all systems are running green according to the standards you sent me," Kendo said.

"Good," Bionus remarked. "One less fly in the lotion for us."

"Anything else you want me to check on? If there's not, I'd like permission to go to my quarters and stay away from these security people."

"Can't let you do that. They want all of us at our stations. Don't worry, it'll just be a standard sweep."

"Standard sweeps on the Citadel involve beating quarians over the head with the _vehk'nar _rule book," Kendo grumbled.

"Yes, but here I can make formal complaints and we can see results," Bionus said. "These companies want to leave a good impression so we'll buy what they're selling. If their officials rough up potential customers, they'll be sure to do something about it."

"The love of money saves us all again," the quarian remarked sarcastically. "I'll stay by my post, don't worry. But I expect more for this. Two books this time, not the usual one."

Bionus chuckled to himself. Kendo was surprisingly easy to please. Buy him one cheesy spaceport novel and he would tolerate your presence. The turian wondered what two books would bring. "If you stay out of trouble during this whole visit, I think I can arrange that."

"That's a deal then, Captain. I'll hold you to it though."

"I've no doubt that you will."

The intercom clicked off. Bionus looked over to find Colleen rolling her eyes at the whole exchange. He gave her a curious look, as though puzzled by her actions.

"You're not even paying him, and he's demanding things of you," Colleen explained.

"What can I say? I'm a softie. Besides, he knows his duty and he abides by it. There's not a lot more I can ask for."

"You need to stop being right all the time," Colleen said, the grin beginning to creep back onto her face.

"I can't," Bionus said, slowly getting up as the Astral Hind began to come in for its landing. "I'm the captain. It's my job to be right."


	3. Freeze Chapter 2

The Astral Hind moved smoothly down into its hangar, following the procedures that the air traffic control had sent to Naviss. He was quite skilled at piloting the ship, following instructions to the letter while not letting it compromise his work. The salarian relayed the last set of codes to the controllers and then engaged the docking locks. As he heard their clicks, Naviss smiled a little to himself, something that he did not let others see. Perhaps later he would find some way to reward himself for doing well.

*

The security team was at the door to the Astral Hind almost as soon as the transport had powered down. Bionus and Colleen were there to greet them, as per protocol. The head of the team was a bored looking human female with short black hair. She looked over Bionus for a moment.

"You managed to be on time," she noted.

The turian nodded. "The job specifics told me to dock when I was scheduled to."

The woman paid no mind to this as she entered the cargo bay of the Astral Hind. Her companion was a young looking asari with a curious look about her. Both of them had heavy pistols by their sides.

"You sent in your engine parameters?" the woman asked.

"I had my engineer forward them to your superiors, yes."

"Your man qualified?"

"He's been around engines since he was born. I have faith in his capabilities."

"Who's he registered with?"

"Unregistered. He's a quarian on his pilgrimage."

The woman nodded knowingly at this. "Then he would be qualified," she remarked, glancing around the cargo hold. "Who else is in your crew?"

"There's my second here," Bionus said, holding out his hand to indicate Colleen. "Then there's our pilot, a salarian named Navis. And we've got a mercenary I pay to keep out the riff-raff. Her name's Renarra Sabados."

The woman looked over at Bionus. "Did you say 'Renarra Sabados'?"

The turian nodded. "I told her to stay on the ship, so that she didn't cause trouble."

"Could you call her in here, please?"

Bionus paused for a moment. "She's not leaving the ship..."

"Call her in here, please."

Figuring it would be better to simply comply and not push his luck, Bionus turned on his personal link to the ship's intercom. "Renarra, you're needed in the cargo hold."

The group there waited until the asari mercenary opened the door and stepped out. She looked a bit puzzled when she saw the woman, looking her over as though she thought she recognized her. "Mira? Mira Henderson?"

The woman nodded and grinned a little. "One and only."

Renarra laughed and walked to the woman, now quite obviously at ease. She hugged her in a friendly embrace. "Last time I saw you was after that protection job on Illium. Where have you been?"

"Around," the woman said. "Gone more or less legitimate. Elanus Risk Control hired me and I've been here for a while now. How about you?"

"Odd jobs here and there. Right now Bionus keeps me around so I can growl at the people who don't look right. Pays well enough."

"I'll bet."

Renarra looked over and saw the inquiring look that Bionus was giving her. She chuckled a bit and let go of the woman. "Bionus, this is my friend Mira Henderson. We used to run together in the mercenary business."

Bionus nodded and held his hand out to Mira. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Henderson."

Mira shook Bionus's hand. "Any employer of Renarra's is a reasonable person in my eyes."

"Glad to know. I hate to interrupt this, but do we pass inspection? My employers might not see me as such a reasonable person if I'm not where they want me to be on time."

Mira nodded her head. "Yeah, I think you pass," she said. "We'll do another sweep in the morning before you leave. Can't have you running off with business secrets, after all."

Bionus nodded. Confidentiality was the order of things here on Noveria. "If you want to go with your friend, Renarra, don't let me stop you."

"Wasn't going to anyway," Renarra said with a smile to Bionus. She looked to Mira. "When do you get off tonight?"

"Hour or so." Mira got something out of a hip pocket and handed it to Renarra. It looked like a small ID card. "Just let them see this when you leave. Meet me in the hotel bar. I'll buy."

"You always do. I'm keeping a count you know. One of these days I'm going to pay you back for all these drinks."

"That'll be the day," Mira said with a smirk. She looked to her colleague. "I'll bring along Bindi here. I'm showing her the ropes, if you will."

"Oh really?" Renarra gave the asari, Bindi, a knowing glance. "Ask her about the time she woke up in a krogan's room on the Vetas Station."

"Ask me about that and lose your job," Mira said to the asari, giving an odd sort of smile to Renarra. Bindi just nodded her head slowly, as though uncertain of what to do in this situation.

Bionus smirked at this and looked to Mira. "My second and I will be going then. My engineer and my pilot will be staying aboard."

Mira nodded. "I'm going to need their names."

"My mechanic is Kendo'Minos nar Early. And my pilot's name is Naviss."

The security officer looked at Bionus with a sort of frown. "That's it?"

"He's a salarian."

"Still going to need his full name."

Bionus sighed and thought for a moment. He had a hard time remembering his pilot's full name even on a good day. "Gorot Vi Vissis Hin Tac Ind Bordo Naviss."

Mira nodded. "All right. You can go on now, Mr. Enrikian. Enjoy your stay at Port Hanshan."

"Are you sure that's not against protocol?" the turian inquired in jest.

"I could check, to make sure," Mira said with a bit of a smile herself.

"Eh, won't be necessary." Bionus motioned to Colleen, and the two of them walked out of the Astral Hind, into the docks of Port Hanshan.


	4. Freeze Chapter 3

It took a while for Bionus and Colleen to get through the security checkpoint, almost an hour. They were very meticulous and thorough, running the pair through a series of questioners as well as the standard body searches. Their superiors took the threat of corporate espionage and sabotage very seriously, and did their best to prevent such things from occurring.

At last though, they let the turian and the human go. The two entered the grey, utilitarian plaza of Port Hanshan. Bionus scanned his surroundings, an unconscious reflex he had picked up during his military service. Those that were here did not seem to be particularly threatening. Most appeared to be business officials, or so he surmised from the quality of their attire. They barely afforded he or Colleen a glance, turning back at once to whatever it was they had been doing before, whether talking with a colleague or reading over some important file. That was fine with Bionus. The less attention he attracted, the better off he felt.

"I wonder if they'll charge us for just looking around," Colleen said.

Bionus chuckled. "Don't give them any ideas."

The two exchanged a knowing look of amusement and continued on their way through the plaza. There was not a lot in the way of things to see there, aside from corporate kiosks and offices. A hanar merchant floated in one corner with his wares about him. None of them appeared to be anything of use to a freighter captain though, so Bionus simply passed him by.

The two came to the entrance to the hotel mezzanine, where the bar was located. Bionus entered first, scanning the room to see just who was there. The crowd there was much the same as those outside, corporate types. A few of them were different. The turian recognized their professions by their clothes and their mannerisms. Some were freighter captains, like himself, waiting out the space between jobs in a relatively nice place. Others seemed to be mercenaries, brought here by the jobs that the corporations had given them. And a few were entertainers, brought here to keep those who lived here from becoming bored due to the isolation. A lanky looking human in a semi-nice suit was on a makeshift stage on one side of the room. He was playing an old human song on an acoustic guitar, something about a cat in a cradle and a silver spoon.

Bionus looked for the one who had given him the job in the first place. At last, he saw him. A refined looking turian, sitting with a human at a table. The human was busy punching in things on a datapad, but the turian simply looked about idly as he drank.

Bionus nudged Colleen and nodded over at the turian. "That's our employer."

Colleen nodded. "You sure?"

Bionus nodded and walked over to the table without saying anything more to Colleen. She followed after him, trusting in the captain's ability to know what he was doing.

The refined turian looked up at Bionus and Colleen as they approached. "You are the ones I hired for the job to bring assets from Illium, are you not?"

"If you hired the Astral Hind, we are," Bionus said with a nod. "Lorik Qui'in, I presume?"

The turian nodded and motioned to the other chairs at the table. "Indeed. Sit down, please. We've quite a bit to talk about regarding the next job I have for you." Bionus and Colleen sat down across from Lorik and the other human. The other turian motioned to a nearby waiter. "Is there anything you would like?" he inquired of the captain and his second.

"I'll have water," Bionus said.

"Is there any asari fruitwine here?" Colleen inquired.

Lorik nodded. He looked to the waiter. "A water for the captain, and a fruitwine for the lady," he said. The waiter nodded and went off to go get what the turian had asked for. Lorik looked back to Bionus and Colleen. "Did you encounter any difficulties with your transport of our assets?"

Bionus shook his head. "No problem at all." The somewhat personable manner in which Lorik Qui'in was acting struck him as somewhat odd, but he chose to ignore it. After all, Lorik was the Administrator of Port Hanshan, as well as head of all Synthetic Insights operations here on Noveria. He could act as he pleased.

The waiter returned with the water and the fruitwine, setting them on the table in front of Bionus and Colleen. Bionus picked up his water but only sipped it. He had ordered it for the simple reason that it would be rude to refuse Lorik's offer. Colleen took a big gulp of her fruitwine, savoring the juicy flavor.

"Good," Lorik said in response. "Then you will not mind another job." He said this part as though there was no question about it. "Synthetic Insights is looking to expand. We're opening up new offices on many worlds. Due to the addition of a few humans in our higher ranks, one of those new offices will be on Earth, in a lesser city called Honolulu. We need transport for a few officials and all their supplies."

Bionus nodded. "Any particular reason why you need my ship for that? Not voicing an objection, but wouldn't you usually use some kind of official transport for that?"

"The board wants to do it this way," Lorik said. "From what I've been able to gather, they prefer that the set-up of the new office be somewhat subdued. If it is done officially, pro-human groups might see it as an aggressive movement to unseat human businesses."

"Which would be bad for business," Colleen said. "Especially if Terra Firma got involved."

Lorik paused for a moment but he appeared pleased at hearing her talk and nodded. "Indeed. I received a memo from a member of the board asking me to hire a transport ship to take the new officials to the office. Since you were just hired to bring assets from Illium, you were a somewhat easy choice."

Bionus nodded. "I can't say that we've got that nice of accommodations. We've got two, maybe three extra rooms that we could convert."

"We'll be sure to add extra compensation, since you are not primarily a passenger transport," Lorik added. "And there are only three that we are asking you to transport in any case. The rest will be hired locally, to help with integrating."

"In that case, I don't think there will be any problem," Bionus said.

"Very good," Lorik replied to this. "I'll go ahead and have payment transferred to your account. There will be a slight delay on your departure though. One of the board members isn't quite here yet. He should arrive within the next day or so. In the meantime, feel free to make use of the facilities we have here. I'll have my assistant extend your passes so you can make use of things like the spa and the gym, to pass the time."

"Your hospitality is appreciated, Qui'in," Bionus said.

"Your promptness is as well," Lorik replied. "You're the first freighter captain in a while to be early. I'm impressed. If you can keep this up, I may add you to the preferred transport list."

Bionus's eyes widened a bit at this. Preferred transport for Synthetic Insights? This was something that he was keen on acquiring. It would help during those times when the freelance jobs were few and far between. Shuffling things back and forth between corporate offices might seem boring, but it paid at least. And when your ship needed fuel and your crew needed their share, that was important.

"What do you think of all this, Ms. Gainsborough?" Bionus asked his second. "No sense bringing you along if I'm not going to ask your opinion of things."

Colleen laughed a little at this. "Well, if I may say so, Mr. Qui'in, you're being quite kind with us. We appreciate it."

"I didn't get where I am by being cold and impersonal. And please, Ms. Gainsborough, if I may call you so, you may call me Lorik."

If Colleen had laughed a little earlier, she definitely chuckled at this. "I think I'll stick to Mr. Qui'in, thank you. Though you're quite welcome to call me Ms. Gainsborough."

Lorik nodded his head. "As you wish. If you'll excuse me, I must take my leave. I have other appointments to keep. I'll keep you updated on the status of the third official."

Bionus nodded and got to his feet as Lorik did as well. "Thank you again, Qui'in," he said, shaking the other turian's hand.

"Show me your gratitude by keeping up your excellent track record," Lorik replied. Then he nodded to his aide and the two of them left the mezzanine.

Bionus sat back down next to Colleen. "Well, that was certainly interesting," he said to her.

She nodded in return. "A big wig who's genuinely a nice guy. I guess nothing's impossible."

"So you think he was sincere with his offer of putting us on the preferred transport list?"

"And everything else, yeah," Colleen said. "He's a bit of a ladies man as well though."

"So I noticed. You're going to have to watch yourself when you're around him."

Colleen rolled her eyes at this. "Please. He probably acts like that with every female that he has a business arrangement with. Thinks it's endearing, most likely."

"And it isn't?"

"Never said that. Just saying that I doubt I'm the first."

Bionus chuckled at this and shook his head. "You poor girl."

"Hey, charming is attractive. Species notwithstanding."

"Very well then," the captain replied with a bit of a smile on his face as he drank his water. "So what do you think our plans should be next?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I for one am very interested in checking out this spa he talked about," Colleen said. "I've got a few extra credits I've been looking for a reason to burn, and I think I've found a reason."

Bionus nodded at this. "Go on ahead then."

Colleen looked at him curiously. "You sure about that? If you need me still, I'll stick around. Work before play."

"If I do need you, it won't be till later," the captain replied. "Go on and indulge yourself. If you need me, I'll have my comm on."

Colleen smiled and nodded at Bionus. "Thank you, Captain," she said as she got up and went to the elevator.

The turian smiled a little, then sat back and watched the crowd milling about. This was a favorite activity of his, if he was not in any particular hurry and the people around him seemed somewhat interesting. He decided to play at guessing who might be hiding the biggest secrets. After a while, he settled on an elcor sitting alone, if only because no one usually suspected elcor of hiding anything at all. And it was the ones you least expected who were usually up to something.

At last though, Bionus turned on his com link to the ship. "Naviss, you listening?" he asked.

"Affirmative, captain," the voice of the pilot said.

"Our time here so far has been successful. I'll be returning to the ship in about half an hour. If you want to, you can get out and about at that time."

"Hm. Need to. Physical center available?"

"There's a gym, yes. Our employer's made it so that our passes will let us into it. He's a generous one."

"Fortuitous. I shall wait till you return then. Out."

The com unit turned off. Bionus nodded in satisfaction. One of the few things outside of piloting that Naviss did was work out. He said it was a welcome change from long periods of sitting in a seat, though not in as many words of course.

Satisfied with this, Bionus got up and went to the elevator. As he stepped inside, two humans did as well. The turian abided their presence well enough. But as the doors closed, one of them suddenly jumped on his back and injected something into his neck. Momentarily shocked, Bionus fought back as best he could, slamming one of the humans against the side of the elevator. But as it ascended up into the hotel proper, he began to loose consciousness. He faded out as the humans moved to keep him upright.


	5. Freeze Chapter 4

Colleen closed her eyes soaked herself in the warm waters of the spa, enjoying herself immensely. It had been a while since she had been able to indulge herself like this, quite a while indeed. Then again, she'd not really had much of an opportunity to indulge herself before Bionus hired her. Working in the loading docks was like that.

But now that she was in the galaxy at large, Colleen took what opportunity she could to sample new things. She was always trying exotic foods and seeing just what luxuries she could afford. She was thankful that the captain was somewhat tolerant of it, though she had pressed her luck with such things on a few occasions.

A shadow fell over her, blocking the light from above. Colleen opened her eye and looked up. Lorik Qui'in was standing over her. She blinked and shook her head, adjusting herself to better view the turian.

*

Bionus opened his eyes and looked around. The last thing that he remembered was being jumped by those two humans and knocked unconscious somehow. Now, now he appeared to be in some hotel room. Upon further inspection, he also found that he was bound to a chair.

The turian glanced around the room with a harsh glare. He'd not been here for a few hours and already he was getting caught up in something. What that something was, though, he had no way of knowing. Until such time as he could figure that out, it was probably best to play along with whoever this was. Once he got a grasp of the situation, then he could figure out a proper way to act.

The door opened and Bionus looked to it. Three humans entered, all of them men. Two of them were the same ones that had jumped the captain in the elevator not a few minutes ago. They did not seem to be anything special. Hired goons, probably. The third man, however, seemed to be quite intimidating. He was short, but there was something in his eyes that let you know he had a million ways of ruining your day, and no conniptions about using any of them. He stood in front of Bionus and looked over the turian with an appraising eye, the captain returning the gaze.

*

"Didn't expect to see you here, Mr. Qui'in," Colleen said to the Port Hanshan administrator.

"I thought I would drop by and see how you were enjoying the services of this port," the turian answered.

"Very well, thank you. You people know how to deal in luxury. Though you it would seem you deal in secrets more, considering the way everyone moves and looks around."

Lorik chuckled. "You seem to be rather astute for someone who's only second in command of a freighter transport," he said to Colleen, kneeling down to her level. "I'm impressed."

"Are you hoping I'll be impressed?" Colleen asked.

The turian paused for a moment, then chuckled. "Well, you're more astute than I thought," he said. "Are you a mind-reader?"

Colleen shook her head with a wry grin on her face. "I just don't see whatever isn't true," she said. "Sixth sense, if you will."

"Interesting," Lorik commented.

*

After a minute or so, Bionus spoke up. "Well, what do you want?"

The man looked over the turian for a moment or so longer. "Are you willing to cooperate?"

"That depends," Bionus said. "For one, you have essentially kidnapped me and tied me up against my will. And two, if I could overlook this, I don't even know what you want me to cooperate with."

The man leaned in to the turian's face. "You're a smart-ass, aren't you?"

"Stating facts," Bionus retorted, looking the man straight in the eyes.

The man huffed and backed off a bit. "Lorik Qui'in hired you for a job just a while ago, did he not?"

"What makes you say that?" Bionus asked.

The man looked over at one of his goons and nodded. Wordlessly, the other man approached Bionus and punched the turian in the gut, hard. The captain yelled out in pain, caught unawares by the strike.

*

"So do you make a habit of trying to impress every female that comes your way?" Colleen asked Lorik Qui'in, looking him straight in the face and trying her best to appraise him. Her bullshit sensors were turned all the way on now.

"Some of them," Lorik admitted. "Mostly asari. But that's a given."

Colleen had to admit to herself that this was true. The asari had that effect on most males, and enough females for it to be noticeable. "What about the ones that aren't asari though?"

Lorik laughed a little. "You want to know why I'm giving you so much attention, don't you?"

"Now you're talking my game. Direct and to the point."

Lorik thought for a moment. Then he shook his head. "Think nothing of it," he said. "The truth is nothing I wish to admit."

*

"Worse than that will happen if you do not cooperate with us," the short man said to Bionus as the turian recovered from the blow he had been given.

"Then tell me what it is you want."

The short man nodded to one of the goons again. Once more, Bionus received a hard punch in his gut. This time however, he was expecting it somewhat, and was able to suitably brace himself. Part of the mandatory turian military service involved a few lessons in resistance to torture. They were paying off here.

"I am the one who is making demands here," the short man said, his voice raising just a little. "You are in no position to do so. Answer my questions, and this does not have to be so unpleasant."

"The only way this could be less unpleasant is if you let me go," Bionus said.

*

Colleen was about to ask Lorik just what he meant by what he had just said. But her com unit, wrapped up in her towel on a nearby bench, began to beep. She got out of the water and went to answer it, half aware that the turian administrator was admiring what her swimsuit revealed of her form.

"What is it?" she asked, sounding a bit grumpy at having her soak interrupted.

"Ms. Gainsborough, there is a problem," the voice of Naviss said over the comm.

"What is that?"

"Captain Bionus has not returned."

"Was he supposed to?"

"Yes. Asked me if I wanted to get out. Answered affirmatively. Told me he would be here in half an hour. This was an hour ago."

Colleen paused as she ran all this information over in her head. If Bionus had told Naviss that he would be back at the ship in half an hour, then he should have been there. The captain was punctual. And even if he was late, he shouldn't be that late.

"I'll be right there," she told Naviss. "See if you can't get Renarra on the line, inform her of what's going on. Ask her if she might know anything."

"Will do. Out."

Colleen shut off the com unit and wrapped her towel around herself. "Is something wrong?" Lorik asked her, standing back up.

"No," she replied with a shake of her head. "Got something that needs addressing back at the ship, is all, and the captain's not there at the moment."

"Perhaps I should accompany you," Lorik offered.

Colleen paused for a moment. Having the administrator along with this might be helpful. But, then again, this might turn out to be nothing. Then they would all end up looking quite foolish in front of not only the administrator, but their new boss.

"This might not be anything," she said. "Just a miscommunication of sorts. Those things happen, you know."

Lorik nodded. "Let me at least escort you to your ship. You can get through security faster that way."

Colleen considered this now. That would be a very good advantage indeed. She nodded. "All right. Let me get back in my regular clothes first."

Lorik nodded. "Very well. I will be waiting for you outside the spa entrance, when you are ready." He turned and walked away without another word.

Colleen couldn't even afford him a second glance to try to figure out just what his game was. There were more important things afoot. She headed for the changing rooms, still somewhat peeved by the interruption of her soak.

*

The short man again nodded one of his goons. But when the goon moved forward to deal a blow to Bionus, he moved too close to the turian. The captain took advantage of this and head-butted him, splitting the human's forehead right open. The man staggered back, yelling out. The other goon quickly moved to quiet him.

The short man dealt with this by moving forward and kicking Bionus in the chest, hard. So hard, in fact, that the chair fell backwards, and the turian banged his head against the floor. Everything was ringing and blurry now, and the captain's chest hurt something fierce. The man leaned over him, a grim look on his face.

"You're going to play this the hard way, I see," he said. "No matter. We'll get what we want in the end."

Bionus was about to ask just what it was that they wanted again, but the man kicked him in the head, and he fell once again into unconsciousness.


	6. Freeze Chapter 5

Colleen sat at the table in the Astral Hind's common room, a wry frown on her face. No one had seen Bionus since she had left him in the bar an hour ago. This was worrisome for her. The captain was the kind of person who would call one of the crew up on his com if they were so much as ten minutes behind schedule at port. He valued punctuality. For him to be out of touch like this was out of character and, in a place like this, quite disconcerting. She racked her brain as she tried to think of what to do next. There wasn't a lot in the way of options. There was no way of knowing just where Bionus might have gone to of his his own accord.

Kendo came into the common room. "Renarra turned her com off," he said, a noticeable tone of discontent in his voice.

"Lovely," Colleen remarked. The asari had gone to see her friend in the bar a little while before Colleen had returned. The two had just missed each other.

"You gonna go hunt her down?" Kendo asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

"Why would I? She's got a right to go with her friend."

"Yeah, but her friend's on the security force. Maybe she's got an ear to the ground on this sort of thing."

Colleen glanced up at Kendo with a sour look on her face. She was not in the mood for his critiques at the moment. "I'm not going to go bothering someone like that over something as little as this."

The quarian tilted his head. "The captain being out of contact is a little thing?"

"We'd all look quite foolish if it turned out that he had just met some girl somewhere, now wouldn't we?"

Kendo shook his head. "You must think I'm an idiot, that I got dropped on my head when I was a babe and now my brains are all addled. I can tell by the look on your face that this isn't nothing. And I know the captain to well enough that I know that him being gone like this is something to be very concerned about."

"Good for you," Colleen remarked in a very sarcastic tone.

The quarian shook his head and walked to the door. He paused though, and turned around. "You think you know everything because you're in charge, because you're at the captain's side and whatnot. You don't know anything. If you knew anything, you'd remember what the captain did for you. He pulled you out of that backwater colony and gave you the chance to be here in the first place. I haven't forgotten what the captain did for me. If you won't go out there and do something, I'm going to."

Colleen swiftly rose and advanced towards Kendo. She knocked him against the wall and pinned him there with her arm. "Don't you ever say I've forgotten what Bionus has done for me," she told him, glaring right into his visor. "And don't ever forget that I am in charge, and what I say goes. And I say you stay on this ship."

Kendo struggled a little against Colleen. "You're going to take this ship for yourself," he said. "You're going to leave Bionus here and take the Hind for yourself, aren't you?"

If the quarian's earlier words had angered Colleen a little, these ones downright pissed her off. She punched Kendo right in the gut, sending him to the deck holding himself in pain. As he began to get up, she put a boot on the side of his head, keeping him right there.

"Don't you ever suggest that again," she growled, grinding her heel against his helmet. "Or so help me, I will put you out the airlock in orbit."

"Go suck off an elcor," Kendo said, still not backing off.

Colleen was about to kick the quarian's gut in. But she looked up and saw that Naviss was standing there. The salarian was quietly observing just what was going on, with no look on his face that might betray his mood. The second in command looked evenly at the pilot, but kept her foot on Kendo's head.

"Captain has not returned?" Naviss inquired.

Colleen shook her head. "No."

"Renarra out of touch?"

"Yeah."

The pilot blinked. "Then why this conflict?"

"Insubordination," Colleen replied. "This punk seems to think that there's no chain of command."

"I saw no insubordination," Naviss said quietly. "Saw brutalization of an essential engineering technician, yes. But no insubordination."

This made Colleen pause. "What did you say?"

"Saw only an attack on someone who has a good point, though he has a very poor way of voicing it."

"You've got that right," Colleen replied.

"Captain has done a great deal for us, at personal expense," Naviss said. "For us to do any less would seem unappreciative."

Colleen thought for a moment, considering what the pilot was saying. At last, she removed her boot from Kendo's head. "You're lucky that Naviss is right," she said to him. "You can be sure that Bionus will hear about this."

The quarian got up. "Nothing would make me happier than for Bionus to hear about this," he said. Then he stalked off, muttering in his native language.

Colleen took a deep breath. Kendo had just about pushed all her buttons there. Bionus would definitely be hearing about this. The quarian needed to learn discipline. But, that was something for another time. For the moment, she looked to Naviss.

"Can you wait to go out?" she asked him.

"Going to find Renarra?"

Colleen nodded. "Yeah. I'll see what her friend might know. It'll probably be a dead end though."

Naviss nodded. "Will wait as long as necessary."

Colleen did not answer to this. She was still running over what the pilot had just done in her head. She'd never known him to be a particularly manipulative person. In fact, she'd never known him to be much of anything at all besides the pilot. She decided to watch him from now on. Perhaps there was more to him than she had first thought.

But for now, that couldn't be worried about. Colleen pushed the pilot out of her head and headed for the loading ramp. It was time to find Renarra and her friend, though it might not do anything at all. But whatever it took to keep the crew together, then she would do it.

***

And a comment beneath my work! So first off, hi everyone who might possibly be reading this. Meant to comment on things in the works from the beginning, but neglected to remember to do so when I first uploaded them, and I don't want to go back and fix that at the moment. So I'll just start from here.

This is just a little under halfway through the first arc, I think. Soon more intrigue will be happening. Yay for intrigue!


	7. Freeze Chapter 6

A little while later, Colleen entered the bar where she had left Bionus a while ago. It did not take her long to find Renarra and her friend, security officer Mira Henderson. For a moment, she paused again. She couldn't deny that things were not as they should be at the moment, what with the captain being out of contact. But even so, she wondered if perhaps she was making this much more worrisome than it needed to be. If it really was nothing, then she and the rest of the crew would appear quite foolish, seeing a problem where there actually was none. But there was a problem. She couldn't deny that. So she walked forward to the table.

Renarra saw her coming and looked up with a curious expression. "What brings you over to us?" she asked Colleen when the second was close enough. Mira turned to look at her as well.

"There's a problem," Colleen said. "Bionus hasn't checked in for over an hour."

Renarra paused. "Did he say he was going to be out of touch?"

Colleen shook her head. "No. He said he would be in touch, more or less. And you know him. He wouldn't be out of touch for an hour if he could help it."

"You're sure he's not just found some sort of entertainment somewhere?" Mira asked, interjecting.

Renarra shook her head. "Believe me, Mira. This guy's a stickler for staying in touch, informing each other of where we're going, that kind of stuff. If he's gone, something's up."

Colleen thanked whatever deity might be listening that Renarra was open to what was going on. "We don't know where he might have gone either. I left him here in the bar earlier, once our meeting with Lorik Qui'in, our contractor, was done. He told me to go ahead and find something fun to do, and that he would head to the ship later. He's not reported back yet."

Mira paused. "Lorik Qui'in himself contracted out to you?"

Colleen nodded. "Yes. He wants us to take some officials out to Earth so that Synthetic Insights can start up an office there."

Mira nodded her head at this. "Do you want me to try to see what I can find out with the security crew?" she asked. "I think I can pull some weight and see what might have happened here."

Renarra paused at this. "You don't have to, Mira. I mean, yeah, Bionus is my boss, but you don't have to go busting your rump on our account."

"Don't worry, I'd be happy to help you. And it wouldn't be too much trouble. I'll just review the security footage and talk to a few people I know. Won't be a problem at all."

"We'd be very grateful," Colleen said to Mira. "Even if it's something minor."

"No problem," Mira said as she got to her feet. "Personally, I'd suspect that he's gone to find some girl somewhere. We have a few consorts on station, after all. But, if you really think that something's gone amiss with him, I'll look into it." She looked to Renarra. "Call it a favor for a friend."

"So I guess you don't owe me for that time I split that krogan's skull open with the butt of my Revenant anymore then," the asari said with a bit of a smile.

"I hope not," Mira replied with a smile of her own.

Renarra laughed and kicked out lightly at Mira. "Go on then. When you get back I'll buy you a round of drinks. Help make up for us sending you on this wild goose-chase."

Mira chuckled at this. "I'll hold you to that then," she said to the asari before looking to Colleen. "When I find something, I'll forward it to your ship immediately."

"Thank you again," the second said, holding out her hand. "I appreciate you taking the time to help us."

Mira shook Colleen's hand. "No problem. I'll be off to do that then." She went off without another word, stepping into the elevator just as it closed.

Renarra patted the chair that Mira had been sitting in, now empty, and looked up at Colleen. "Sit yourself down," she said. "You look as nervous as a hanar at a krogan family reunion."

Colleen had to chuckle at the analogy as she sank down into the chair. "I'm just hoping that he's all right," she said. "I'm also hoping that it turns out to be nothing, even though it'll make us look slightly foolish."

Renarra waved her hand at this and shook her head. "We won't look foolish. Enough corporate back-stabbing and second guessing goes on here that keeping your people close to you is a survival skill. I don't think anyone will be judging us."

Though this really didn't satisfy Colleen, she nodded anyway. Something across the room caught her attention. A man was making his way towards their table. The second had been around long enough to tell just what people were intending in situations like this, and this man was intending to come over to her and Renarra. At first, Colleen didn't really recognize him. Something about him seemed semi-familiar, but she kept having trouble placing him. He had a semi-nice suit on, though that wasn't too much of a stand out here. Still, though his exact identity didn't really jump out at her, she could tell that he didn't have bad intentions. She nudged Renarra with her foot and nodded towards the man. The asari saw him and nodded her head as well, letting him approach.

The man walked up and stood in front of the two of them, looking right at Colleen. "You were with the turian captain earlier, weren't you?"

This sent off an alarm in the second's head. But she didn't let him see that. "Why do you ask?"

"I noticed it. I was up on stage playing when the two of you walked in and had a chat with the administrator of this facility."

Now he was certainly familiar enough. Colleen recognized him as the musician that had been playing in the bar while she and Bionus had been talking with Lorik Qui'in. "You're quite observant when you're playing, then."

"I am," the man said. He looked at the asari. "How well do you know that other human? The one who just left?"

Renarra narrowed her eyes at the musician. "You better start going somewhere with this," she said to him. "Because you're saying a lot of vague things that are very liable to get you in trouble."

The man pulled up a chair and sat down at the table across from Colleen and Renarra. He licked his lips and took a deep breath. "I wasn't always a musician. I was in the criminal underworld for a few years, the result of some bad thinking and a lack of good options. I still know the signs that the less scrupulous are up to something though, and have different ways of finding out exactly what that something is."

"What sort of something would it be this time?" asked another voice. Colleen froze and looked to her side. Lorik Qui'in, of all the people in the galaxy, was sitting there. He had pulled up a chair quietly between her and Renarra, and was leaning in with quite a bit of interest. The second started to think fast. The last thing that she wanted was to drag the administrator into all of this.

"It's nothing, Mr. Qui'in," she began to say, trying to allay whatever concerns he might have and hurry him along so that she could hear what the musician had to say.

To her great surprise though, the musician held up his hand. "It's something all right," he said. "And I'd rather that the illustrious Mr. Qui'in be here to hear it. For it concerns him just as much as it concerns you."

*

_ A new chapter! Yay! More surprise and intrigue is unfolding around our heroes. However will they survive to see "Blasto the Jellyfish Stings", since they TiVoed it on their galactic TiVo? How did I know they TiVoed it, or that there are even TiVoes in the Mass Effect universe? All good questions. And all shall be explained in time! _

_ Also, mad props to 95Headhunter, for giving this story a review. Thank you very much!_


	8. Freeze Chapter 7

When Bionus finally drifted back into consciousness, he was somewhat disconcerted to find that he was still in the room, bound to the chair. His gut hurt from where his torturers had been working on him earlier. But it did not hurt too much. Part of Bionus's training in the military had been in resisting torture. Based on only that, even he could tell that these thugs had no experience in the field. What they were doing was roughing him up, nothing more.

As he looked up, the short man and the two men who had been with him before entered the room again. They looked distinctly unpleased. Bionus smirked to himself at this. Evidently they had expected the process of getting a simple freighter captain to do what they wanted to be easy. He was a wrench in whatever their plans were. This pleased him somewhat.

The short man walked up to the turian as his goons shut the door. "You are making this very hard on me," he said. "It doesn't have to be like this, you know. Just help us with what we want to do and it will be much easier for you."

Bionus glared at the short man. "If you had bought me a drink in the bar and we had talked this over like equals, then I would be more receptive to helping you. As it is, you have drugged me and tried to torture me. You'll understand why I am somewhat hesitant to help you."

The short man returned the glare that the turian was giving him. "My methods are my own, not yours to question. What matters now is that you are in my power. I am a god to you. I can break you if I wish. If you do not want to be broken, I suggest that you cooperate."

There was a sudden knock on the door. The short man and his two thugs froze and listened. Bionus noticed that there was something of a pattern to the knocking. Two short knocks, then a pause, then another knock. The three men seemed to notice this as well. The short man nodded to the other two, and one of them opened the door.

It surprised Bionus somewhat when Mira Henderson, the security officer from earlier and the one he remembered as Renarra's friend, walked into the room. She almost didn't notice him sitting there, but walked up to the short man with an exasperated look on her face.

"Officer Henderson," the short man said, greeting her somewhat curtly.

"Cut the crap, Berkley," Mira said. The tone in her voice indicated that she was not in a good mood. "What do you think you're doing?"

"What our employer hired us to do."

"You're supposed to be gaining the cooperation of the captain. Do you have any idea what that entails?"

"I know my job, Officer Henderson," the short man said, looking somewhat defiant.

"No you don't," Mira said, crossing her arms and glaring at the short man. "What you're doing right now isn't gaining cooperation. You're just beating up on him for no reason."

"We are attempting to gain his cooperation through forceful persuasion. It is a legitimate method, I assure you."

Mira went over and stood in front of Bionus. "It would be if you were any good at it," she said. "You don't know the first thing about torture."

"I know quite enough," the short man protested. "More than a mercenary like you."

Mira spun around and glared at the short man. "Don't insult me. I've seen batarian slave camps. They do quite a bit better job than you. Ever seen a woman go from utterly defiant to a fawning mess in five days? I have. And that was standard procedure. Some batarians, the skilled ones, could do it in a day. Maybe less, if they wanted to show off. Compared to them, you're just a child with a deficient mind."

"We're not looking to utterly break him, Officer Henderson," the short man said, as though admonishing her for thinking such a thing. "We just need to earn his cooperation."

"So you instantly resorted to torture," Mira said. "Just like that. You didn't even think that more could be gained by sitting down with him and talking it out with him."

"He wouldn't have cooperated. The administrator is a turian, like him. These aliens don't betray each other like that. You've got to force them to it, make them betray everything about their race in order to just get them to do one thing. That's how it is."

Mira looked as though someone had just smacked her in the face. "You're an idiot, Berkley. You really think that? No, don't answer that question. You're just an idiot. How did you even get this far in the galaxy? How are you even working for Anoleis in the first place with a thought process like that?"

"These aliens may be manipulated into believing that I am not as I appear," the short man said. "I would have thought that a fellow human as intelligent as yourself would understand these things as I do. I am sad to see that is not the case."

"I'm intelligent enough to see that you're not intelligent at all. You've got your head up your ass, Berkley, plain and simple. And you have made a splendid mess of things here. Do you know what's happening now that you've kidnapped this turian? His crew is looking for him. You managed to capture someone who is a slave to schedule and checking in with his crew. He's been gone for just a few hours and already the fact that he hasn't checked in with everyone has clued them into the fact that something is wrong."

The short man glared at her. "You lie."

"Don't give me that crap. Why else would I be here? I don't like you as it is, Berkley, never did. I'm in this for the money pure and simple. It's enough to kill for. And don't think I won't do just that to ensure that I get it." Mira looked hard at Berkley when she said this, as though hinting at unpleasant things in store for the short man.

The short man took a deep breath. It was quite evident that things were becoming far too uncomfortable for him. He looked down to Bionus. "Call up your crew," he said to the turian. "Explain that you were detained somehow. I don't care what excuse you give, so long as you keep our presence here a secret. Say you found a prostitute or something. You allay their fears."

"Or what?" Bionus asked.

"Do not question me," the short man said with a glare. "Do as I say, or there will be consequences."

"I don't have to do anything for you," Bionus said, returning the glare. "You have fouled up whatever it was you were meaning to do. If I do nothing, what you have done will come to light. You clean up your own mess."

The short man moved as though he was going to strike the captain. But he was interrupted by Mira, who punched him right in the jaw and sent him crashing to the floor. The two thugs moved to attack her, but she drew her pistol and shot them both in the head without even a second thought.

"You have made a mess of things, Berkley," Mira said, holstering her pistol. She reached into a pouch on her belt and took out a small vial. "Now we've got to do this the unpleasant way." She moved towards Bionus.

The door opened. Mira spun around to confront whoever it was, reaching for her pistol. But she was met with the sight of Colleen, Renarra, Lorik Qui'in, and the musician from the bar standing in the doorway. Colleen and Renarra had two shotguns drawn.

"Mira Henderson, I think it is time for your employment at this facility to be terminated," Lorik said.

*

_ Yet another chapter is up! And the plot thickens even thicker! _

_ I just realized that our lovely crew has only been in Port Hanshan for something close to half a day. Maybe not even that long. That's crazy, I think. I'm going to have to tone down how fast the plot moves in future installments. That's a fault of mine. I'm sitting around going, "Nothing's happening right now. EVERYTHING HAPPEN AT ONCE!" And then it does, and we all feel rushed. I shall have to restrain myself from now on._

_ Tune in next time to see Mira weigh her career choices and think about how to word this wacky misunderstanding on her resume! Oh wait, it's not a misunderstanding. Somebody's going to have a bad day, methinks._


	9. Freeze Chapter 8

"Impeccable timing," Bionus remarked, smiling at the quartet that had arrived to rescue him.

"Always do my best, boss," Renarra said, though she kept an even and solemn face as she said it.

"Are you all right, Bionus?" Colleen inquired.

"I've tangled with hanar worse than this," the turian replied. "I'm quite all right. Your arrival is still appreciated though."

The short man slowly began to get up. Colleen, who was closest to him, kept her gun trained on him. "What is this?" he asked. "How... what..." He looked to Mira. "You crossed me. You told them what was going on here."

"Don't be stupid," Mira said to him.

"You never were a smart one, Berkley," the musician said from where he was standing. "Always more concerned with the methods than with the actual job."

Berkley paused and looked at the musician. "You. You dirty double crosser."

"Can't double cross a guy who's double crossed you already, Berkley. That's how it goes."

"Berkley, who is this guy?" Mira asked.

"You don't get to find that out, Ms. Henderson," Lorik Qui'in said. "Put your weapon down, and back away from Captain Enrikian. If you do that, the charges against you will be less severe."

Mira hesitated. Her fingers were still brushing at the butt of her pistol, as though she was itching to draw it and make an attempt to level the playing field.

"Don't do it, Mira," Renarra said. There was a flinch in her eyes as she kept her shotgun aimed at her friend. "As it is now, I'll let you go and we can laugh about this whenever it all blows over. Let's keep it that way."

"You don't understand," Mira said. "You don't understand, Renarra. The money's good. And the way things are sitting right now, it can be even better."

"What were you hired to do?" Lorik Qui'in asked.

"Set you up to fail on that new office," Mira said. "Well, Berkley and his two were. I was just hired to keep them from getting caught."

"You are not to tell them about the job," Berkley snarled to Mira.

"Shut up and look with your eyes," Mira said. "He's right here in front of us. We take care of him like this, it's the same thing. We'll still get the money."

Berkley looked over at the group that was assembled there. "Ah. Good point, Officer Henderson."

"Let me guess," Lorik said. "Anoleis is behind this."

"Gold medal for you in the obvious department," Berkley said. "He hired us to disgrace you. Though dismemberment is probably pretty disgraceful as well."

"Not going to happen," Colleen said, planting herself firmly as if preparing to fire the shotgun. "You took my captain, tried to torture him. You go nowhere."

"Don't you tell me what I can and can't do, you alien collaborator," Berkley said with a noticeable degree of disgust in his voice. His hand rested on a small pouch on his hip. It was not big enough to hold a gun, yet big enough to warrant Colleen keeping a close eye on it.

"Shut up, Berkley," Mira said. "You're not helping this at all."

Renarra planted her feet as well. "Come on, Mira. Just stand down and you can walk away from this. As it is, all you did was let three people in unsupervised. That's just a termination of employment. I'll help you get a new job somewhere else. Just stand down."

"The money's good, Renarra. Really good. You'd like it, I think." Mira looked at Renarra intently.

"What are you suggesting?" Renarra asked.

"You know good and well what I'm suggesting," Mira said. "You and me, like old times."

Colleen stole a sideways glance at Renarra at this, picking up on what Mira was suggesting and wondering if the asari was going to betray them in favor of her friend. But as she did so, Berkley took the opportunity to reach into his pouch and pull out another little vial. He threw it towards the musician in the back. As it sailed through the air, what was it contained in dissolved, leaving only a greenish liquid. This splashed all over the musician's face. He put his hands up and screamed in pain, falling to his knees.

Renarra flinched and looked back at this, as though wondering what was going on. Mira took the opportunity to lean over to Bionus with the glass syringe that she held in her hand. She injected the captain with whatever was in it. Almost instantly, the turian began to feel a creeping fire seeping through him. He cried out and began to thrash about. Whatever she had put into him, it was certainly having a horrible effect.

"Hold it right there, Mira!" Renarra said, looking back at her friend.

Mira paused for the briefest of moments, looking hard at Renarra as though she was trying to convince the asari to hold back without saying anything. Berkley broke that moment by trying to throw another one of his little vials, lips curled in a vicious snarl. Colleen interrupted him with a shotgun blast to the gut, sending the short man flying back onto the bed with blood spraying from his body. The vial hit the wall and shattered, the liquid beginning to bubble and sizzle wherever it fell.

"Come on, Renarra!" Mira said, drawing her gun, expecting the asari to help her somehow.

Renarra answered her friend with a shotgun blast. Mira was knocked to the ground with a stunned look in her eyes, her pistol flying across the room. Bionus barely noticed the heat from the blast. He was too busy trying to not pass out from the pain. Colleen ran over to him and untied him from the chair, leaving him free to fall to the floor and writhe about.

"This is the administrator, send medical personnel to Hotel Hanshan Room 45, priority alpha," Lorik Qui'in barked into his comm piece as he knelt beside the musician, who was yelling and holding his face where the chemicals had hit it.

Renarra went over to Mira, who was holding her arm out and gasping. There was an ugly sound of air escaping from her lungs with each breath that she took. The asari knelt over her as though trying to save her.

Through all the pain, Bionus looked up at Colleen. She did her best to try to hold him still so that he did not injure anyone, looking down at him as she did so.

"Come on, captain," she said. "Keep it together. Lorik's sending for help."

"Fire," Bionus said. "Dragon's fire. In my bones..." He saw and felt nothing more, as he lapsed into unconsciousness.

*

_A new chapter! And events kick into overdrive! _

_ I love how everyone stands there and talks before just deciding to start a fight anyway. Also how Lorik manages to not get hurt or really involved at all. _

_ Bionus! Nooooooo! Nameless musician! Noooooo! Mira! Ehhhhhh! Berkley! Who cares?_


	10. Freeze Chapter 9

When Bionus next awoke, his muscles were more sore than he ever remembered them being before. He was lying in a soft hospital bed with a bright light shining down on him. The turian held up his hand and looked around, trying to figure out just where he was.

A salarian dressed in white medical clothes walked over to him. "Ah. You are awake. This is good."

"Ugh," Bionus moaned, shaking his head. The bright light was giving him a headache. "What happened?"

"You were injected with a levo-amino acid based solution. It functioned rather like a poison for your biology. The administrator managed to get you here before it caused a fatal reaction."

That explained the fire in his body, the last thing that he remembered. "What... what else?"

"I do not know what you mean by that inquiry. If you mean what happened after you were injected, I only know that there was a struggle. Those who harmed you and the administrator were dealt with. They did not survive."

Bionus shook his head. While the salarian had told him what had probably transpired, he hadn't told him just exactly what had happened. That was to be expected though. Salarians had that habit of being literal.

"I need to talk to my crew," the turian said.

"You need to keep yourself rested," the salarian said. "Your body is still suffering from the after-effects of the solution. It will take some times for you to recover your strength."

Bionus grumbled. "How long?"

"Seven days or so. Luckily you are healthy, or the period of time might be longer."

The turian tried to move so that he could get up. His muscles protested at this. "I have a job," he said. "I have to be ready."

The salarian moved and stopped Bionus from getting up. "The administrator said he would find another to do your job in light of these circumstances."

"Great. Just great." Bionus's shoulders slumped. That job was his chance to get a way to provide the Astral Hind with decent and steady employment. And he had been powerless to prevent it from slipping through his fingers.

"Now now," the salarian said as he helped the turian lay back down on the bed. "The administrator is not quite through with you. He will speak with you once you have recovered from the poison sufficiently enough."

"I am recovered enough," Bionus said, though he sighed as he relaxed on the bed.

"Not quite yet. You need more time. Rest, captain. Let your body heal."

Bionus grumbled a little at this, clearly displeased by what was being asked of him. The salarian did not respond to it, merely going off to take care of some other matter. He did turn off the light over Bionus's head before he left though. The captain was at least grateful for that. It let him rest his eyes, drifting off into a somewhat relaxing half-sleep.

Colleen stood outside a nearby one way window, looking in at Bionus. She knew that he couldn't see her, but she hoped that somehow he knew that she was there and that it was a comforting thing. Lorik Qui'in was there as well. He had invested a great deal of his personal time in this, only leaving the medical ward once or twice to take care of previously scheduled things. Colleen was rather grateful for the administrator and what he was doing for them. His presence had been a rather comforting thing these past two days. Though she wondered if perhaps he was behaving like this now because he felt guilty that both Bionus and the musician had come to harm.

The nameless musician. Colleen had heard about his condition from Lorik a few times. The liquid in the vial that Berkley had thrown had been a corrosive acid. The past while had been spent frantically trying to save as much of his face as was possible. While the medical ward on Noveria was one of the best facilities of its kind in the galaxy, even it had limitations. While they had managed to save quite a bit of the musician's face, his eyes and his nose were quite beyond repair. Cybernetic implants were being installed to compensate, free of charge on the orders of the administrator.

As for the others, there was nothing that could be done. Berkley had died not too long after Colleen had shot him in the gut. Mira had hung on a bit longer, long enough to spit in Renarra's face and accuse her of betrayal before dying. That had hurt the asari quite a bit. She'd stayed in the ship through all of this. Naviss had said that she was keeping to her quarters and playing soft music. Having seen what Renarra could do if she was in a agitated mood, Colleen was glad that she was keeping calm.

"You should rest," Lorik said to her as they both looked in on Bionus.

She took a deep breath. "I should. Doesn't mean I'm going to."

"You're not helping him by worrying yourself to death."

"I'm not worrying myself to death, believe me. I'm merely keeping vigil."

Lorik nodded. "Very well then." He turned to walk away.

"Thank you, Mr. Qui'in," Colleen said to him. "Your charity has been quite unwarranted."

The turian paused and turned around. "Unwarranted? You and your captain have saved both my business reputation and my life. If that does not warrant what I do here, then I do not know what does."

"I didn't mean to be rude," Colleen clarified. "It's just, well, you've been like he would have been."

"What do you mean?"

"Captain Bionus would have done the same thing, were he in your position."

Lorik nodded his head. "Ah, I see. It is a turian peculiarity. Our duty is to our tasks and to those who help us in those tasks. You and your captain have helped me in my task, so it is my duty to help your captain along to a speedy recovery."

"Still, I must thank you. Your presence... it has been rather calming."

Lorik bowed his head at this. "I am glad that I could help in that respect then. It is what any respectable being would do, I like to think."

"It's certainly gentlemanly enough."

The turian chuckled. "As you wish, then."

He turned to go. "Wait, Mr. Qui'in," Colleen said. He paused and looked back to her. "When we spoke before, at the spa, you said that I would not want to hear why you were paying so much attention to me."

The turian nodded. "This is true, I think."

"Why don't you tell me anyway? I'm not one for bullshit, after all. It means I can handle the truth."

Lorik paused for a moment, thinking all of this over. Colleen waited for his response. She herself was not quite sure why she was bringing the matter up again. Something about the way that the administrator was personally attending to this matter made her curious though. And when Colleen was curious, it mean that she wanted to know the truth even if it might hurt her. After all, she was a no bullshit kind of woman.

"I am a lonely one at times," Lorik said at last, putting his hands behind his back and looking off at the wall.

"Everyone gets lonely sometimes."

"This is true. I did not mean that there was anything unusual about this loneliness."

Colleen crossed her arms in front of her. "Mr. Qui'in, if you're implying that you want to romance me, I've got to say that I'm not a stay down kind of girl."

The turian held up a hand. "I do not mean to imply that at all," he said. "I have neither the time nor the patience for a long term commitment with a member of my own species, much less a member of another."

"So why are you paying attention to me?"

Lorik paused. "Because I am looking for a female upon whom I can dote from time to time, whenever she may come around Port Hanshan."

This was slightly odd, but Colleen brushed it off. "Why not ask a turian female though? Surely there are plenty of them that come through from time to time."

Lorik looked around, as though he was afraid of someone catching wind of what he was about to say. "I have to admit that what I wish to do is not something that is considered proper in turian culture. We do not, oh, what is the word I am looking for, court, as you do. When we court it is usually somewhat violent. To pamper as I wish to do is seen as somewhat deviant."

"So let me get this straight," Colleen said. "You want to pamper me?"

"I wish to be in a state of perpetual courtship with you," Lorik said.

"Say that in another way, because that sounded too odd."

The turian paused and thought. "I wish for it to be as though I am always trying to get you to commit, yet such a thing never happening."

"You want us to be eternally boyfriend and girlfriend?" Colleen asked.

"Now I must ask you to say that another way, because you make it sound odd as well."

"Never mind, I understand what you're saying," Colleen said.

"You do not have to accept," Lorik said. "I merely approached you because we will be seeing quite a bit of each other in relation to the employment of the Astral Hind here, and because you are somewhat attractive by turian standards."

This part really through Colleen for a loop. "Pardon?"

"Your height and your posture. They are pleasing."

"Oh, I see," Colleen said.

Lorik turned and looked off towards the wall, as though he was suddenly slightly embarrassed that he had been speaking at all. Colleen thought over what had just been said. Well, it could be a lot worse. Thankfully all that this turian was wanting was a fling every so often, as opposed to some long term relationship.

But should she go for it? Should she cater to the administrator's somewhat innocent whim? She figured it was innocent, anyway. While one could never be too sure in matters like this, Lorik seemed to simply be interested in how humans did things. Perhaps he had gotten interested in how humans courted, and wished to try it out himself for a while. No harm in that. And he seemed to be quite gentlemanly enough anyway.

Colleen walked forward and stood beside Lorik. "If I were to say yes, would you make sure that the Astral Hind was put on the preferred list?"

"If that is the only reason you would say yes, then I would rather you say no. I have enough of people doing things like that in my work. I do not need it when I wish to relax."

"It's not the only reason I would say yes. But would you do it?"

"I might." Lorik looked over at Colleen. "What other reasons do you have though?"

"Because someone pampering me doesn't sound like all that bad of an arrangement," Colleen said in reply. "And you have been quite a gentleman throughout this entire affair, enough of one for me to be trusting of you."

"Is that a full yes, then?"

Colleen chuckled. "I think so, Lorik."

_ And the tying up of loose ends begins! Yay!_

_ Originally I was going to have the poison never really leave from Bionus, and him have to take something every day to keep it under control. But that would require me to have either a working knowledge of chemical biology, which I do not have, or to do a lot of research on the subject, which does not interest me._

_ Oh, and I keep forgetting to inform everyone about this. Some of you may notice that I have a very irregular schedule. This is mainly because I am writing this in my free time and posting the next chapter almost as soon as it is done. Usually I'll read it over first, but not always. I can at least say that you will see a new chapter of this at least once a week. I can't say that there's a specific day of the week it will get posted, but rest assured it will come about at least once a week. If I end up posting two, it's because I'm having a good week._


	11. Freeze Conclusion

The week passed by. Day by day Bionus recovered more and more of his strength, until he was at last able to move about as he had before. The medical ward released him after running a last series of tests, giving him a clean bill of health, though advising him to continue to take it easy for about another week or so.

The first thing that Bionus did after he was released was go to visit the musician that had come along to help save him. When Colleen had come by to visit him during the past week, she had mentioned that it was because of the information that he had provided that allowed them to find the captain in the first place. Bionus did not know how this musician had known how to do this, but he was thankful for it nonetheless.

The musician was a sorry sight, lying there in the white medical bed. The acid had eaten away at his face. Quite a bit of it had been replaced by cybernetics, the metal plate they had used giving the man somewhat of a new skull-like visage.

He looked up at Bionus when the turian entered his room. "You're the captain. Bionus Enrikian?"

Bionus nodded and sat down on a chair beside the bed. "I am."

"Glad to see you're doing better. Sorry that I couldn't get people to you faster. Didn't know quite who in the security staff I could trust."

"I am thankful that you said anything at all," Bionus said. "While I was not in too much danger until Officer Henderson showed up, she would have hurt me a great deal more than that other man had."

"Berkley was never very good with convincing people to do things," the musician remarked. "I knew him once. He liked to think that he was something he wasn't. Guess it all caught up to him."

"How did you know him?"

"I was not always a musician. And we will leave it at that."

Bionus nodded. "I am sorry that you had this happen to you for my sake."

The musician was quiet for a moment. "Bound to happen sooner or later," he mumbled.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just consider this my past catching up to me," the musician said. "I thought that I could use what I knew to atone for things that I did. But I don't think works alone atone for things. Sometimes you've got to pay in pain."

The turian did not really know what to say to this. He tried his best to change the subject. "So what will you do now?"

"Go back to playing in the bar. Gotta pay the rent somehow."

"You'll stay here?"

"Got nowhere else to go."

Bionus thought for a moment. "You could sign on with us."

The musician looked over at the turian. The captain could not tell just what the man was thinking, seeing as how he could no longer really express any emotion. "What do you mean?"

"Travel with my ship. You could find a bar or something to play in whenever we dock. We're usually in port long enough for you to play a night or two."

"That's not really enough time to pay for travel fare."

"No fare. You helped me even though you had no reason to. I want to repay you for your charity."

The musician was quiet for a moment or so. It seemed as though he was thinking over what Bionus was offering him, though the turian could not be for sure on that.

"Well, I always wanted to travel again," the man remarked at last. "I'd have to load up a few of my instruments. I hope you don't mind them taking up space."

"We've got a spare room for you and whatever you need," Bionus said.

The man nodded. "All right then. If you'll transport me, I'll tag along. You've got to let me pull my weight though from time to time. I don't feel right just sitting around while others do things for me."

"Good," Bionus said. "What's your name?"

"I've had quite a few names," the man said. "Tom, Felix, Sylvester. You can call me the Cat though. That's my stage name."

It was strange. But Bionus had a feeling that the man simply wished to disassociate himself from whatever it was that he might have been before, since he had spoken of atonement. "Very well, Mr. Cat."

The Cat nodded. "They tell me they want to keep me for another day or so. Think you can wait around that long?"

"I must still arrange a new job, and make sure that my ship is ready to go. I think we will still be here when you are released."

"Then I'll be there."

Bionus nodded. "Good." He got to his feet. "Thank you again."

The Cat simply nodded and laid back in the bed, trying his best to rest. The turian walked out of the room and let him be.

Bionus did not have to work very hard at finding a new job. Lorik Qui'in, who seemed closer to Colleen all of a sudden, had a new one arranged for them. Some materials needed to be taken to the Synthetic Insights headquarters on the Citadel, and the Astral Hind was the perfect ship for the job.

The captain was grateful for the administrator's charity regarding this. Part of him wondered if Colleen might have allowed herself to drift closer to him just so that they would have an opportunity for this job. He made a note to speak to her about this later. If Colleen and Lorik would have a falling out, then a source of jobs would dry up and leave everyone on the Astral Hind high and dry. Bionus wanted an assurance of jobs that would rely on something a bit more permanent than a relationship.

Colleen did tell the turian what had happened while he had been incapacitated, especially regarding Kendo and his insubordination. Bionus knew that he needed to address this somewhat promptly. Colleen was the one in charge when he was gone, and if Kendo had been disrespectful to her then he had been disrespectful to the captain. So the first opportunity he got, he sought out the quarian to have a chat with him.

He found Kendo in the engine room, running a diagnostic. He leaned against the wall and waited until the quarian turned around and saw him there.

"They finally let you out, huh?" Kendo asked, putting away his omni-tool.

Bionus nodded. "They did."

"Good. Things weren't the same without you. You need to be careful. It's like I always say, these aliens don't ever mean us any good."

Bionus shrugged his shoulders. "Every race has a few bad apples," he said as he shut the door to the engine room.

"Eh, true. But some more than others."

Bionus ignored this. "How did you handle things while I was gone?"

Kendo shrugged. "Well enough. Kept myself busy down here. Was afraid I'd go crazy if I didn't."

Bionus nodded. "Some might say that you did anyway."

"What do you mean?" Kendo asked, sounding a bit unsure.

"I'd think someone who told Colleen to 'suck off an elcor' like you did would be a bit out of their right mind."

Kendo paused, then turned away from Bionus and began to fiddle with the engine. "She would have left you."

Bionus walked up to Kendo and grabbed him by the shoulder, forcefully turning him around. "I have faith in Colleen. I wouldn't have made her the second in command if I didn't. And don't you dare forget that." He said this in a quiet, even tone.

"I won't." Kendo tried to turn back around, but Bionus wouldn't let him.

"Good. If you do forget, the next time it happens I will kick you off this ship at the nearest port. And I can do it too. You apprenticed yourself to me, didn't you? Said you would follow my orders and stand by my judgements. One of those judgements was making Colleen second in command. If you can't stand by that judgement, then you're no use as an apprentice."

Kendo made a displeased sound at this. "I won't make it a problem again, captain."

Bionus nodded. "Good. I like you, Kendo. You're dependable with that engine and don't generally make trouble. Don't ruin this for yourself."

"It's kind of hard to respect someone who thinks that they're superior to you," Kendo said, jerking his shoulder out of Bionus's grip.

Bionus paused. "What do you mean?"

The quarian shook his head. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

The captain sighed. "Speak your mind, Kendo. If you can tell me the problem like a logical person can, it's not disrespect."

Kendo paused for a moment or two, as though collecting his thoughts. "I have heard the words 'I wasn't like that at his age' come out of Ms. Gainsborough's mouth many times when she talks about me. I would prefer not to."

"I do not think that she means it."

"Please don't bullshit me, captain. You know good and well that she means it. She treats me like some kid because that's how humans see it. But I'm not a kid, not how my kind see it. She's just like one of those humans who think that everything should conform to how they think, no matter what." He took a breath. "With all due respect, captain."

Bionus thought for a moment about what Kendo had said. There was a problem here. The quarian did not think very highly of Colleen, that much was true. But was it because the second really thought of him like that, or was it only his cynical and unruly perception of the world clouding it?

"That may be so," the captain said at last. "But she is still second in command. And if I am not around, you will defer to her wishes. Do I make myself clear?"

Kendo took a deep breath. "You do."

Bionus turned and walked to the door of the engine room. "I picked you up a couple of e-books," he said to the quarian. "I sent them to your computer already."

Kendo nodded. "Thank you, captain. Is there anything else that you need me to do?"

"Not at the moment. Oh, one more thing I need to say. We're picking up a new crew member."

The quarian paused. "A passenger, or a permanent addition?"

"He's as permanent as he wants to be."

Kendo nodded. "Who is he?"

"Musician. Human. Told Colleen and the administrator of the port where to find me, and probably saved my life. He took some acid to the face, however, had to have some cybernetics put in. I'm letting him join up and play in the ports we go to as long as he wants."

"What's he call himself?"

"The Cat. And he won't say anything more than that about it, so don't go interrogating him."

"So long as he doesn't mess with me or the engines, I'll stay out of his hair."

Bionus nodded. "All right then. I'll leave you to your work."

Kendo said nothing more, but got his omni-tool back out and began to go over the engine again. Bionus knew that he had probably upset the youth, but he also knew that it couldn't be helped. He had left Colleen in charge, after all, and he had to back up her authority. Though he would need to speak with her about her attitude towards Kendo as well. There was a grain of truth to what the quarian had said, the captain thought.

Bionus walked back up to the common room, intending to find Colleen and speak with her. The second was not there. Renarra, on the other hand, was. She was drinking what looked like andalusian grade whiskey and staring at the table. It was obvious that she was troubled about something.

The captain pulled up a chair at the table across from her. "Boss," she said, acknowledging his presence.

"Thank you for coming to get me," Bionus said. "I... understand what you had to do."

"No you don't. I'm going to ask you nicely not to say that you understand anything about this from now on."

The turian paused, then nodded. "Very well. I don't, I suppose. I still feel you deserve thanks."

"For what?" Renarra asked, looking up at Bionus with a bitter expression. "For killing a friend I knew for twenty years to save someone I've been hired out to for only two? Don't start talking about thanks. There is nothing you can do for me that will show me you appreciate what I did satisfactorily enough."

"I didn't mean to imply..."

"I know what you meant. You meant well. You always mean well. But let me tell you something right now. No amount of meaning well is going to make this any better." The asari took a drink of the whiskey. "Most mercenaries learn pretty quickly that you don't make friend with other mercenaries. You pick up on that right about the time when your first one dies a few months after you get to know them. I thought that maybe Mira... maybe the both of us had gotten to some kind of point where that didn't matter anymore. I guess I was wrong."

"Renarra, I know that my opinion means nothing right now, but I don't think you betrayed her."

Renarra shook her head. "I didn't. I know I didn't. She tried to say I did, there at the end. But I didn't. When you're on opposing jobs, there's no such thing as betrayal. Only business. She forgot that." She sighed and took another sip of whiskey. "Still doesn't mean that I feel okay about the whole thing."

Bionus nodded. "When you feel like doing your duties again, come and tell me. Until then, take whatever time you need to be alone."

Renarra did not answer this. She simply took another drink of whiskey, lost in her grief. The captain got up and headed for Colleen's room, leaving the asari be. He hoped that she would be all right. But he had lost friends before as well, and knew that even when it wasn't your fault that it tended to stay with you for quite a while.

Colleen answered the door when Bionus knocked. "When are we leaving, captain?" she asked, leaning against the doorpost.

"Tomorrow, I think. We're taking on the musician as a crew member."

"The Cat?"

Bionus nodded. "Do you have a problem with that?"

Colleen shook her head. "He seemed decent enough. A little on the dark side, but not to where he'd try anything against us. He did help save you, after all."

"All right then. There were a few other things I wanted to discuss with you. Might I come in?"

"All right," Colleen said. She stood aside and let the captain into her room. He took a quick look around. Colleen usually kept her room somewhat sparse. There wasn't a lot in it besides her bed, the clothes in her closet, and her cabinet with her pictures of her family. But as Bionus took a closer look, he saw a small holographic display of Lorik Qui'in sitting there amongst the smiling human faces.

"I can see that the administrator was kind enough to you," he remarked.

Colleen looked and saw that Bionus was looking at the display. "Oh, that," she said. "Yeah, he's nice enough."

"It appears that a lot happened while I was in that hospital bed the past week," the captain said.

Colleen shook her head. "It's not what you think. Lorik isn't interested in that."

"Define 'that'," Bionus said.

"He's not looking for a proper relationship of any kind, really. He's wanting to just court someone in the human fashion."

This was certainly puzzling. "Why is that?"

"He's got a thing for our culture," Colleen said with a shrug. "He would try it with one of your females, but apparently that's against some norm or something."

"Indeed," Bionus remarked. "Turian courtship is somewhat, oh, 'rough'. And anything less is seen as a sign of weakness and not being worth the time of the female."

Colleen nodded. "Sounds about right. But all Lorik wants to do is apparently shower me with gifts and take me out whenever we're at Port Hanshan until he thinks he has a feel for the whole process."

Bionus nodded. "And you're okay with this?"

"He's paying. And he was a gentleman about the whole thing, at least. Don't worry, captain. It's not going to interfere with the jobs we get from him. He wasn't going to do it if that was the only reason I was agreeing."

"Good." Bionus turned away from the cabinet. "That clears that up then."

"Anything else?"

"You'll be somewhat happy to know that I talked to Kendo."

Colleen grumbled under her breath. "What did he say?" she asked.

"He's agreed to respect your position."

"Good. About time."

Bionus nodded. "I should have talked with him about this before it got to this extreme."

"Don't worry yourself, captain. He's just a kid."

The turian paused. "Actually, he's not."

Colleen frowned. "What do you mean?"

"By quarian standards, Kendo is not quite a kid. After all, he's on his pilgrimage. They don't let kids out for that."

"He acts like a kid."

"Kids aren't as responsible as he is. Say what you like about his attitude, but you have to admit he'd rather take off his suit before he neglects the ship."

Colleen crossed her arms. "What are you saying, captain?"

"I'm saying that maybe since you are helping another to learn about your culture, it might behoove you to take some time to learn about someone else's."

"Is that an order?"

Bionus shook his head. "A suggestion. Nothing more."

Colleen nodded. "All right then. I'll keep it in mind."

The turian could not tell if she really intended to keep it in mind or not. But he did not want to push it either. He was feeling somewhat tired. After all, his body was still feeling the after effects of the poison.

"Thank you. That's all I ask."

Colleen nodded again. "Need anything else, captain?"

Bionus took a breath. "Sleep, I think. Think you can keep an eye on things while I do that?"

"Ought not to be too much trouble."

"Good. If the Cat comes around, let him in and give him the spare room. That'll be his now."

"All right. Rest up, Captain."

Bionus nodded. He opened the door, then turned back to Colleen. "Thank you," he said, looking right at her. "I appreciate you coming for me."

A little smile spread across the human's face. "Don't mention it," she said. "Just go get some sleep before you fall over."

Bionus chuckled a little and nodded his head, stepping outside and shutting the door behind him. He stumbled off towards his room, eagerly awaiting a well deserved rest.

_ And that concludes the first story arc of Roads._

_ Wow that last update is looooooong. I mean, wow. And it's all talking too! Ugh, I need to plan better to prevent such things in the future. Thankfully it's all wrap up._

_ I think the next update will be some kind of hodge-podge thing. Maybe a few quotes from our characters, a little background information, or maybe even a Q/A section. If you guys want to ask me a question related to Roads, Mass Effect, or about myself, ask away and I will answer it in the next update. We'll call it part of a breather installment._


	12. Interlude Zero Fleet

Zero Fleet One: Capabilities

The shuttle touched down on the landing pad like a feather coming to rest on the surface of a puddle of water. The nearby grass rippled as the wind swirled around the landing craft. The few asari that were nearby quickly moved off towards the nearby temple complex. They knew why the men aboard the shuttle were here, and knew that it did not bode well for their matriarch.

Matriarch Ceda stood on the steps of the temple complex, watching as her charges came up to her. She surveyed the shuttle with a somewhat haughty glance. It was of human construction, boxy and angular, not possessing the smooth curves of asari design. An ugly ship for an ugly race, or so she told herself.

"Mistress Ceda, they've come," one of the asari said as she walked up the steps.

The matriarch nodded. "I can see this, Nasoaga. Go inside. All of you."

The asari that were assembled there all paused. "But, Mistress..."

"Do not falter in your obedience," Matriarch Ceda said, a bit more harshly. "Go inside and wait for me. Do not trouble yourselves with what might happen here. These humans pose no threat to any of us."

The other asari hesitated for a moment or so longer. At last though, they all went up the steps and went into the temple complex, leaving the matriarch standing there alone. She waited.

After a few minutes, two humans exited the shuttle and began to make their way towards the temple complex. Matriarch Ceda surveyed them carefully. They were both males. This boded well for her. Perhaps they could be manipulated in the traditional ways. While she preferred to use something a bit more intellectual, there was no use in throwing out methods that had proven effective in the past.

As the two men drew nearer, walking across the dry grass, the matriarch was able to get a better look at them. One was dressed in the traditional blues of a naval officer of the Systems Alliance. He seemed somewhat uneasy, looking around and running his fingers through his short red hair. If one of them would be easier to break, it would be him.

But the other one, now he was unusual. He was dressed in white, a stark contrast from his companion. He was also a full foot and a half taller than the other man and quite trim to boot. There was also a distant look in his eyes, as if he were elsewhere mentally.

The two men stopped at the foot of the temple stairs. The shorter man pulled a flask out of his coat and took a drink from it. The man in white simply crossed his arms in front of him and looked up at Matriarch Ceda. She did not like the look he gave her. It was not a condescending one. Rather, it was a look of analysis, as though he was running over in her head how best to circumvent her. She had never been looked at like that before in her 400 year long life, and it displeased her.

"The Systems Alliance has no business in this system," she said, looking at the two men intently. "Your boundaries are elsewhere."

"We are not looking to expand our borders, ma'am," the red-haired man said, putting away the flask and straightening up a little.

"There is nothing here for you," the matriarch said.

"That is incorrect," the taller man said in an even voice. "You possess something that is crucial to the completion of my mandate. I would like to negotiate for it."

"There is nothing for you here," the matriarch said again. "If you will not comprehend this on your own, then I shall make you understand."

"We will not leave without what we have come for," the taller man said.

There was no sound for a moment or two save that of the wind rustling the dry grass and the far off call of some animal. The red-haired man bit at his lower lip a little, clearly nervous, but he held his ground beside the man in white.

Matriarch Ceda frowned. She knew what these two were here for. But she also knew that she had been directed by those close to the Citadel Council that she could not lead anyone acquire the thing that they wanted. She had a suspicion that these two were the last people in the galaxy that needed to know it anyway.

With a quick motion the matriarch sent a wave of biotic energy barreling right towards the two men, intent on crushing them. But instead of the wave throwing them back and dashing them against the ground like a porcelain vase against stone, it dissipated in a spectacular display not five feet away from their faces. Matriarch Ceda could feel its shock wave from where she stood. Yet, strangely enough, the two men did not seem the least bit moved by it.

"Your hospitality was not something you were praised for, Matriarch Ceda," the man in white commented.

She glared at him. "How is it that you were able to accomplish this trick? It should have been impossible."

The man in white smiled. "Sentient species are not the only ones that are affected by element zero exposure." He unbuttoned the top of his coat. A small grey head poked out. It looked around for a little bit, then slipped out of the coat and curled around the back of the man's neck, revealing that it was a worm of sorts. "A greater mind worm, able to create a field strong enough to negate any biotic powers. My companion has one as well, though he is somewhat adverse to the creatures." The red-haired man seemed to shudder a little, but kept silent.

The matriarch frowned. "I should have known that Cerberus would equip you thusly."

A bemused expression crossed the face of the man in white. "Cerberus? You think us part of Cerberus? Matriarch Ceda, do you truly think that only one faction of humanity is looking for ways to improve our future? If so, then I question how you even became so prominent."

"Do not be so quick to insult me. You may be immune to my biotics, but I have fifty capable warriors within that temple who would be able to make short work of you."

"I have a cruiser and two destroyers in orbit. All I have to do is say the word and one of the destroyers can fire a tactical nuclear missile that will level that temple and leave no impact on anything else."

The matriarch paused. "Just who are you? What kind of fool are you that would threaten an asari matriarch?"

"Who is the greater fool, the one who threatens an asari matriarch, or the one who thinks that being an asari matriarch saves her from threats?"

"Answer my question. Who are you?"

The man in white looked the asari right in the eyes. "I am Admiral Montgomery Theon. My companion here is Commodore Gary Pennington."

"I have never heard of you."

"You have heard of what I come for though, or else you would not resist me as you do."

"You seek information on the turian carrier _Court of Seasons_. Others have sought that same information. They were sent back from whence they came with broken minds."

"This I know," Admiral Theon said. "But I do not think that you will do the same to me."

"You are a haughty and presumptuous one," Matriarch Ceda said with no small amount of contempt. "Just like the rest of your race."

Admiral Theon's face did not change expression at all. "I am here to bargain with you for the information. I am nothing if not a proper man."

Matriarch Ceda laughed at this. "You? Bargain with me? What could you possibly give me that would make up for the information I am about to give you?"

Admiral Theon looked over at Commodore Pennington. "Commodore, give Matriarch Ceda the datapad, would you kindly."

Commodore Pennington took a deep breath and nodded. He slowly walked up to the asari matriarch. Slowly, he took a datapad out of his coat and handed it to her. She took it reluctantly, as though afraid she might catch some disease from touching it after he had. The commodore did not seem too bothered by this, but withdrew to his spot by Theon's side.

The matriarch looked over what was on the datapad half-heartedly at first, expecting to simply see something as minor as ship specifications or colony locations. But as she read on, she began to focus on it more intently. There was something here that was much more than what she had previously thought the Admiral was offering, something that let her see just how ruthless the man was.

Matriarch Ceda looked up at Admiral Theon with barely-disguised anger. "You wouldn't dare do this."

"Do what?" the Admiral asked.

"What you have given me. This plan, you would not dare implement it."

"And what makes you so sure of that?"

"You do not know what you do. The Asari Republics would not fall as easily as you assume."

"You assume that it is a weak plan. Read over it. Note the detail. Note that it is not one plan, but rather a handful of them, accounting for many great losses. Note how it manages to get the salarians on our side, and keep the turians out of the war altogether. I assure you, it would work. I would not show it to you were I not somewhat confident in that fact."

Matriarch Ceda glared at Admiral Theon. "You are a ruthless one."

"I merely do whatever is needed so that I may be able to complete my mandate," Admiral Theon replied. "Now, might I inquire as to where the _Court of Seasons _went after it disappeared from the Tassus System?"

The three stood there for a moment or two longer in silence. Matriarch Ceda could barely contain herself. These two humans had come here and displayed the audacity to threaten her, circumvent her power, and then threaten her entire species? It was quite unprecedented and disrespectful. Admiral Theon simply stood there silently, waiting for the matriarch's answer. Commodore Pennington pulled at his collar, signifying his discomfort.

At last, Matriarch Ceda spoke. "Where do you think that the _Court of Seasons _went?"

"Most said that its last known course took it beyond the Perseus Veil," Admiral Theon replied.

"Then it is there you must direct your search," Matriarch Ceda said, a great deal of contempt still in her voice.

Admiral Theon thought for a moment on this. Then he nodded. "Very well then. I thank you for your cooperation today, Matriarch Ceda."

"You must honor your end of this agreement," the asari said. "You cannot put this insane plan of yours in motion."

The admiral laughed a little. "I never had any intention of utilizing it other than how I just did," he said. "It would serve no purpose to take the asari out of galactic politics, whether by force of arms or other means."

The matriarch paused. "Then why did you even think up such a plan in the first place?" she asked, somewhat incredulous at all this.

"For two reasons, Matriarch Ceda. One, because I knew from my sources that you could not be coerced in any way other than a direct threat to a large number of your species. I knew I was going to need a very large direct threat to truly get your attention. And, my second reason was to show you that I can do such a thing if I truly desired to. You find that the Terminus Systems tend to temper a man, to sharpen his mind and give him a wisdom beyond his years. Such has it been with me."

"You are a monster," the asari said slowly.

Admiral Theon shook his head. "No monster. Merely a magnificent bastard. I thank you for your time, Matriarch Ceda. May you live many more years in peace."

The asari offered him no words of parting. The admiral turned and began to head back towards the shuttle, Commodore Pennington not far behind at all. Matriarch Ceda watched them leave. She was glad she had told them where the _Court of Seasons_ had gone after all, she decided. Beyond the Perseus Veil, one only found horror and the geth. This man, this Admiral Theon, would surely perish. The matriarch shook her head. Though she did not want to admit it, she found herself somewhat uneasy about that fact. Would he truly perish? As much as she did not like it, such a thing seemed doubtful. She looked at the datapad, where the admiral's plan to destroy and/or subjugate the asari race was spelled out clear as day. Matriarch Ceda found herself praying to the goddess that whatever might be beyond the Perseus Veil was greater than the Republics, if only so that they might defeat this man.

_Hey there. _

_So, this is just an interlude between story arcs of Roads. One of the crew members of the Astral Hind has ties to this Court of Seasons, the first turian carrier constructed and later declared missing after an operation against pirates in the Heta Tassus system. This was intended to fill in a little backstory on that. However, it also turned into an opportunity to let me play with two new characters._

_I like this Admiral Montgomery Theon guy. I really do. Don't worry, we're going to be hearing from him in the main story arcs of Roads as well. He is actually a very deliberate homage to a certain character by Timothy Zahn. Anyone who's read his Star Wars books ought to be able to pick up on who this guy is an expy of right away. Especially when you throw in that trick he used with that greater mind worm._


	13. Interlude By the Stars

By the Stars We'll Abide

Renarra sat in the common room of the Astral Hind by herself, a bottle of whiskey sitting on the table in front of her. Everyone else but the pilot was asleep. But she couldn't sleep. Even two weeks after what had happened with Mira, it was still hanging in her mind. She could still see her friend's face when she pulled the trigger of the shotgun, could still hear the angry words that she whispered with her last breath. And it weighed on her.

It shouldn't be like this. According to the laws of mercenaries, impartial and callous laws, she had done nothing wrong. It had been just business. So why then, if that was true, was she still having problems with this?

The asari held the bottle of whiskey in her hands, letting herself get lost in examining its labeling. "Hekk Nekk Harr brand Andalusian whiskey," it said. "When you don't need to remember the fun you had." At first, it didn't really sound like it was for her. After all, Renarra wasn't looking to forget some fun she had had. She was looking to forget something bad. But as she thought about it some more, she realized that it was not so much the bad thing that she wanted to forget as much as the good things that the one bad thing had ended. Mira had been a decent person. The two of them had gotten along rather well. Even now Renarra could think of a time on Omega when they'd run a quick con on a couple of batarians. Good times. They had been some very good times. And she wanted to forget it.

A door opened and Renarra looked over idly. It was Kendo. "Hi, Renarra," the quarian said as he walked over to the cabinet.

"Hey," Renarra said.

Kendo paused and looked at the asari. "Are you all right?"

Renarra didn't answer for a moment. "What does it matter?"

The quarian paused for a moment. "Guess it doesn't," he said as he opened the cabinet and began to look through it. "You just don't seem like yourself, is all."

"Wasn't aware you cared."

"Hey, I only pull that cynical and snotty side with people I don't like," Kendo said as he got himself a tube of food paste out. "You've not given me a reason to not like you, so I tend to notice."

"My, aren't you a saint," Renarra remarked sarcastically.

Kendo sat down at the table across from her. "All right, seriously. What is it that's got you on edge like this?"

The asari shook her head. "Doesn't matter. What's done is done, and by the stars we'll abide."

The quarian made a dissatisfied huff as he hooked up the tube of food paste to his helmet and ate a little. "Never really cared for that sentiment. You can always change something."

"Can't change the stars," Renarra said.

"But not everything is stars."

"Not saying it is. But it's awful hard to change a lot of things."

"It is hard to reroute the port manifold to take up the duties of the starboard manifold, yet it can be done anyway."

Renarra shook her head. "Just trust me."

Kendo shrugged. "As you wish, then," he said, finishing up with his food paste. He got up and disposed of the empty container. "If you feel like saying what's gotten you upset, you know where to find me." The quarian left the room.

Renarra shook her head. Kendo meant well at times, but he still didn't quite get it. Hopefully his pilgrimage would help to teach him how the world worked like that. He'd do a lot better if he just wised up. The asari took a drink of the whiskey, shaking her head a little. The drink tasted a bit bitter, but it would fulfill the purpose that it advertised. And that was all that Renarra cared about.


	14. Rain Chapter 1

The lights were somewhat dim in this lower part of the Citadel. It was nothing that could be fixed, simply a part of how the station was designed. But it worked well enough for most of those who chose to inhabit it. They were of the less reputable varieties of galactic life. But they were also the most refined in their respective varieties. This was where the crime-lords did their business, those who kept a somewhat respectable front for everyone else. Here was close enough to the top to help them maintain their facade, but not too far away from the bottom that their tactics drug them towards.

The atmosphere suited Indra Don well. He was one of the more successful crime-lords, or "Entrepreneurs of Alternative Businesses," as he liked to call himself and his cohorts. Though they weren't always his cohorts. Oftentimes the others would try to muscle in on him, thinking that since he was a volus it didn't matter. He had always educated them on the errors of their ways. Indra Don always wanted people to be well-informed on things related to the criminal underbelly of the galaxy, especially if they dealt regularly with it.

One of the things that he felt that people ought to be informed above all else was the taboo against cutting and running. When one entered into an agreement with another person, one always stuck around and let the partner have their share. This was proper business etiquette. When one decided to leave the partner without their share, then etiquette had been breached. In Indra Don's world, the next logical thing to be breached was most often the guilty party's skull.

But, one could not always educate on one's own. After all, while Indra Don was quite powerful, he was not omnipotent. Sometimes those who had done him wrong were able to run and keep out of his grip. Therefore, he often required the services of others to bring him those who had transgressed against him so that he might educate them. Bounty hunters were very useful in that regard. Indra Don often utilized their services.

This is why he was here at this time, relaxing in the back of this club. There was someone that he wished brought to him, so that he might educate them. However, this individual had managed to elude him for quite a while. He had become somewhat incensed by this. He wished to remove them and the thorn in his side that they represented. Their very refusal to simply go away had served to anger him even more. So the volus was here to enlist the services of a bounty hunter, a particularly skilled one.

A couple of krogan body guards sat at Indra Don's left and right, like a pair of lions at the feet of a great king. They were there to discourage any witless worms who might think that the crime-lord was vulnerable. Their presence was quite effective in this regard.

A thinning of the crowd in the club told Indra Don that someone was drawing near to his table. He put a hand on the table, a signal to his body guards to wait until he gave the signal before deterring whoever it might be. They did not have to speak for him to know that they would comply with what he wished. He paid them well enough.

A quarian emerged from the tangle of bodies and the loud music and approached the table. Indra Don looked her over carefully. There was something about her that seemed to indicate there was more to her than met the eye. Perhaps it was the fact that her environment suit seemed somewhat more refined and advanced than the average quarians. Perhaps it was in the way that she did not walk in the demure way that her race normally did, but rather stalked across the floor. Or perhaps it was neither of these things, and she simply exuded a presence of both professionalism and ruthlessness by the very act of her existence. The volus did not know, and this pleased him. For he knew what it meant for his enemy that eluded him.

The quarian stopped and stood at the table across from Indra Don. The volus cleared his throat. "Do you come as a hunter?" he asked the quarian. It was a simple question at first glance, but there was more to it than there appeared to be. Only one affiliated with the Bounty Hunter's Guild would know the correct response to it.

"I come as tracker, as captor, as killer, as victor."

The volus nodded. "Satisfactory. Please, have a seat."

The quarian sat down, her head looking back and forth between the two krogan as she did so. She did not keep watch on them out of worry though. Her head moved far too slowly for that. No, she was keeping watch at them out of a simple desire for appraisal, visually looking them over for any sign of weakness that she might exploit. It was somewhat odd, and unnerving, to see a quarian look over a krogan like that. Usually it was the other way around.

"You are the one I sent for," Indra Don said. He did not ask this, but merely stated it.

"I am," the quarian replied.

The volus nodded. He took out a datapad from a pouch that hung from his belt and slid it across the table to the quarian. She picked it up and began to look it over.

"Seems to be easy enough," she remarked after a moment or two. "I will look into this for you."

The volus nodded. "It is good that you do this for me. This one, he is most troublesome. You noted the high reward if you can bring him back undamaged?"

The quarian nodded. "I did notice that."

"Good, very good. I do have information that suggests that he may be docking here at the Citadel a week from now. If you can manage to, oh, acquire him while he is here then, you will receive an added bonus."

"I will certainly do my best to get ahold of him, then," the quarian said.

The volus nodded. "You may go now. Everything else that you need to know, you will find on the datapad."

The quarian nodded. She rose and walked back into the crowd, leaving Indra Don with his two bodyguards. The volus sat back and tapped his fingertips on the table. A great relief had been taken off of his mind now. Affairs were going to be taken care of, and one who had displeased him would be apprehended and brought in to face his punishment. This had been a fruitful evening.

_*Looks at how long it has been since the Zero Fleet update* Wow, that was a long time. I want to apologize to everyone for that. I was dealing with a bit of personal business that frankly went on for far too long, as well as some college papers I was writing. But now both of those things have been hammered out and I'm ready to get right back in the swing of things._

_ Today we start a new story arc! Yay! And already, mobsters and bounty hunters abound. This will be a bit more of a focused arc than the other one. I let that stupid Lorik subplot with Colleen get entangled in everything, and it weighed it all down. I'll play through with it for now, see what happens. But I'm kind of face-palming that I put it in in the first place._

_ However, I shall try to make amends for such things by giving you new and shady characters! Who is this mysterious quarian bounty hunter? What does she have to do with the crew of the Astral Hind? Why is a volus part of the space mafia? All good questions, with answers that shall come in time._


	15. Rain Chapter 2

Kendo grumbled as he looked over the engines. They were holding together well enough, the Astral Hind was not a scum freighter like those that practically choked the Terminus Systems. But she did have a bit of age on her, and that meant that sometimes she acted a bit temperamental.

Today, it seemed like there was an issue with one of the motivators. It had gone bad, probably because Naviss had been leaning a bit heavy on the artificial gravity fields during atmospheric entries. The quarian shook his head. He was going to have to have a word with Bionus about this. While those artificial fields did make things quite a bit easier, relying on them too much was going to cost them many more motivators. And over time, that would add up in costs. Better to hold back a little than not do so and lose a fair amount of credits.

The quarian used his omni-tool to adjust a few of the engine parts a little, tightening up what was lose and making sure that there was nothing out of place. It was something he did daily. A lot of the time, there wasn't anything that was really out of place. Yet he still ran his omni-tool over everything anyway, careful eyes making sure that all was as it needed to be. It was one of the few things he never failed to do.

There was a knock on the door. Kendo turned and looked, somewhat startled due to being caught unaware. It was only Bionus though, leaning against the side of the door as he always did when he came around to talk to the quarian.

"How are the engines looking?" the turian asked Kendo.

"As good as they ever are. Whenever we want to leave the Citadel, they'll carry us as far away as we want to go. And I couldn't be too happier about that."

"Don't like the Citadel?"

"It's a nice place. We used to have an embassy there, you know. Till we accidentally created a synthetic race. Then they decided we didn't deserve an embassy there. So no, the Citadel is not my favorite place."

Bionus walked into the engine room. "Don't worry. We'll be clearing out soon enough. Already got a new job lined out. I expect to shove off in several days."

"That's several days too far away," Kendo said, a tad too harshly. At a look from Bionus, he shrugged his shoulders. "I'll abide by it though," he said quietly. "It's not as if I have to go out there anyway."

"What's eating at you?"

"What do you mean?"

The turian frowned, or frowned as well as turians can. "Don't give me that, Kendo. You know what I mean. I've grown to expect a somewhat caustic exterior from you, but something's really set you on edge today."

Kendo frowned. "You wouldn't like it."

"What do you mean, I wouldn't like it?"

"I mean you wouldn't like it cause it runs counter to things you've already told me. No use in bringing it up and getting you upset with me on top of being generally unhappy about various goings on."

"I'm asking you to be honest with me. That means I'm not going to get upset if you're bringing up what is honestly making you unhappy."

Kendo sighed and looked back over the engines for a moment or so. He saw where something was still sort of lose, a panel that had begun to lose its magnetization. With a quick flick of his omni-tool, he adjusted it so that it was as good as new.

"I've been doing what you said as far as respecting Ms. Gainsborough goes," the quarian said quietly as he put away his omni-tool.

"I've noted. It's only been a week though, Kendo."

"Wouldn't be a problem if things had just gone on as they did before the week was over. You don't know what it's like, captain. She's come from one of those places where they think raising a kid is the job of everyone the kid comes in contact with. 'It takes a village to raise a child', that sort of malarky. Where I come from, villages don't raise children."

"You don't have villages, Kendo."

"Excuse me, Captain Bionus, but that's not what I meant and you know it. A ship doesn't raise the kids aboard it, the kids raise themselves aboard the ship. That's how it goes for my people. That's how we have lived for 200 years. It's served us very well. I happen to... strongly resent... having someone so... blatantly ignorant... act as though the ways of my culture are not legitimate. Everyone else on the outside does it anyway. I... would prefer to not undergo it on this ship. Captain."

It had taken quite a bit of self control for Kendo to not simply spew his many thoughts about Colleen. This was good, most of them were quite vulgar in nature, and saying them would not have improved his standing with the captain at all. Though the quarian did not get along at all with the second, he respected Captain Bionus above all else. In Bionus he fancied he saw someone who he thought came close to understanding him. He didn't quite see him as a friend, but rather as a very benevolent authority figure, someone who tried to accommodate him while still getting what he wanted. That was fine by Kendo.

The turian thought for a moment or two. Kendo simply stood before him with his arms at his sides, waiting for his reaction. He did his best to let his appearance mirror his inner respect for Bionus.

"You have valid points," Bionus said at last. "And I have to commend you for speaking civilly about the whole thing."

Kendo nodded his head. "My gratitude, captain."

"I'm afraid I can't just simply snap my fingers and fix everything though. I may be captain, but I'm not all-powerful. I just act like I am."

The quarian shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't really expect you to. You just asked. So I answered."

Bionus nodded. "Thank you for being honest, at least. Here, I'll make it up to you. I know a bar that frowns upon humans. What do you say I take you there and we have a good time? My treat."

Kendo frowned and thought for a moment. Was the captain trying to divert his attention away from the core problem? He shook his head. That wasn't like Bionus at all. Bionus always tried to help, above anything else. That's all that this was; Bionus trying to do whatever he could to help the situation, no matter how small it might be.

"They're open to quarians?"

Bionus nodded. "I saw some in there when I stopped by earlier today."

Kendo thought for a moment or two. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "Couldn't hurt, I guess. If you're paying, Captain."

Bionus chuckled. "Of course I am." He stood aside, so that the quarian could pass by him. "Come on."


	16. Rain Chapter 3

The quarian watched from a secure place as the turian and the quarian youth left the ship. This was good for her. The fewer there were on board the ship who might interfere with her and her job, the better. Though she was willing to do just about anything for her job, the less collateral damage there was the better. More collateral damage meant more heat on her and possibly her employer, and this was not agreeable. Whatever sort of trouble she might be in with the authorities, it was quite likely that it would pale in comparison to the trouble she would be in with her employer. Discretion was the key.

She'd spent some time getting familiar with the layout of a freighter like the one that was in the docking bay before her. They weren't all that common, an obscure model a few decades old at best. She'd had to do some digging to find schematics. She would enter through the cargo bay, and begin her search along the two corridors on either side of the ship, where the crew rooms were. If her target was not there, then she would search the common room, just fore and above the cargo bay. Should that prove unsuccessful, the next place to look would be the engine room, just beneath the common room. And if in all of that she did not find her target, then the cockpit was where he most likely was.

Now that the other two had gone far enough that the ship was beyond their line of sight, the quarian made her way slowly towards it. She took care so that her approach was not noticed by anyone around. While they might not care about her initially, if she were to be caught they would be quick to pin all matter of things on her by virtue of her race. This was fairly high on the list of things that would displease her employer. And that meant that it would break her number one rule, do not displease the current employer. Whoever was holding out the credits at the moment was boss. If circumstances dictated that her employer one job would be her target the next one, then she would shed no tear for him. He wasn't her employer anymore, and therefore he had no authority over her.

The cargo bay doors were mercifully unguarded. The quarian activated her tactical cloak as she slipped inside. Though she had quite the knack for sneaking around places and remaining undetected, she could not accomplish such a feat while in the cramped quarters of a freighter. She was good, but not that good.

A quick glance around the cargo bay turned up nothing note-worthy, simply a cigar smoldering in a small ashtray that was sitting on a random box. This seemed to indicate that someone had been in here relatively recently, though whether that someone had been the turian, or was still aboard the ship, did not readily make itself evident to the quarian. The fact that she could have company aboard did not upset her though. She was quite prepared for resistance.

The quarian made her way towards the door that lead to the starboard hallway. She touched the door control softly and it slid open with only a slight 'whoosh'. Almost immediately she heard someone on the other side express a sound of puzzlement. The quarian froze and listened. Footsteps drew closer to the open doorway, echoing in the emptiness. A human with what looked like a metallic mask on his face looked through the door, glancing around and trying to figure out just who might have opened the door. As quick as she could, the quarian moved forward and hit the side of his neck with a mild charge from her stun-prod. The man went limp instantly. The quarian quickly dragged him off behind a few of the boxes in the cargo hold. She would like to have stuffed him in one of the rooms and locked the door, but she had no clue what might be in those rooms. Better to stuff him in a place she was sure was empty rather than one she was not so sure about.

Now that potential collateral was put away where it could not get hurt, the quarian could continue on. She made her way along the starboard hallway, checking each of the three rooms one by one. There was nothing in them that was of any consequence to her job. One appeared to be that of the quarian she had seen leaving the ship earlier. She could tell by the style of the few adornments that were within it, and by the somewhat sparse nature of those adornments. Such a mark of passage of one of her own captivated her attention for a moment or so. She thought back to what seemed like another life, to someone that she had given her heart to aboard the flotilla. But she shook her head before those thoughts could clutter her head. That was another life ago. She had employers to keep happy now. Happy employers meant the credits kept coming in, and her continued existence away from the flotilla was secure. So she passed on, but not without marking that something about that particular room seemed familiar, as if she had had a hand in it somehow.

Finding nothing in the starboard hallway, the quarian moved on to the common room. One quick sweep told her all she needed to know, that her target was not in there at all. This frustrated her. She had been told that he was a shifty and paranoid sort of individual, but this was just pushing it. To be as prepared for her as he appeared to be, it just didn't seem right to her. She resolved to handle him roughly when she found him. The employer had said to bring him in alive, but he had said nothing about not giving him any bruises.

The quarian moved off into the lee hallway, checking these three rooms as well. The second room had someone in it, a human female who immediately noticed when her door opened for no apparent reason. This was not the quarian's target either, so she dealt with the human female the same way she had dealt with the human male earlier, incapacitating her with the stun-prod. She locked the door after her departure, hoping that this would cause a delay in whatever kind of response could be mustered to stop her.

A majority of the ship had now been explored, and yet there was no sign of her target. The quarian was quite frustrated now. She almost wished that it wasn't likely her employer would notice something along the lines of a broken bone, for she needed to release her stress on something. However, he was the sort of individual who would, and who would be likely to pay her less for damaging the target. She would have to find some other way to relieve the tension that was building up in her.

She backtracked to the common room. This was not the smartest thing to do. The quarian usually did not make a habit of coming back to places that she had already been, even if it was in an instance so small as this. If one came back, they ran the risk of either getting caught or leaving double the evidence that they had been there, which would result in them getting caught anyway. But the design of this ship made it necessary. So she went back anyway.

As she quietly walked into the common room, she caught sight of an asari sitting at the table, a glass of some alcoholic drink in her hands. The quarian froze, watching the asari for a moment or two. She considered simply passing on by. But, she remembered that she was going to have to deal with her anyway, when she tried to leave the ship with her target. Better to take her down now than when she was trying to wrestle with an uncooperative or unconscious prisoner as well.

The quarian moved forward to take care of the asari, brandishing her stun-prod as she did so. But right when she was about to deal the incapacitating blow, the asari swung her arm out to the side and hit the quarian hard. This was rather unexpected, and the intruder stumbled backwards. The blow also knocked the tactical cloak offline, revealing the quarian. The asari did not waste any time, but quickly leapt up and delivered a strong blow to the side of the quarian's neck. She felt it even through her environment suit, and began to drift into unconsciousness. The asari knelt over her with a frown as she closed her eyes and slipped into blackness.

_ So, finally I get another installment of this out. Sorry if it's kind of late. To tell the truth, I've been distracted as of late. Gone home from college and whatnot, some things have gotten muddled in the transition. But I shall do my best not to abandon you, all you out there who might read this._

_ And finally we get a description of the Astral Hind! I had wanted to put it in one of the earlier updates, but never really had an opportunity. Now it is there though, so that all of you have an idea of the setting that the characters are moving through. _

_ Also, you may notice something else is different. There is no dialogue in this update, at all. This is like, amazing for me. Usually I have to stuff in conversations and whatnot every couple of sentences, or I find it hard to keep the story going. However, I managed to avert that this time, and I just wanted to make a special note of it._


	17. Rain Chapter 4

Bionus stood in the common room, leaning on the table, thinking. He and Kendo had not been gone long when Renarra had called them back to the ship. She had seen a quarian sneaking aboard the ship, and had followed her while she knocked out both the Cat and Colleen, apparently looking for something. Renarra had knocked her out in turn and restrained her, putting her in her own room for safe-keeping. Then she had notified the captain.

So here they were in the common room, trying to figure out what they ought to do next. Colleen was still shaking her head, recovering from the shock that had knocked her out cold. She was rather unhappy about the whole thing. She'd already repeatedly apologized to Bionus for letting happen. He'd forgiven her, but she'd not really seemed as though she'd taken that to heart.

"So where do we stand?" the turian asked, pinching one of his mandibles in stress.

"Don't know for certain," Renarra said. "She's not been forthcoming with much. Wouldn't even say her name."

"Does it matter?" Colleen asked. "We should just turn her in to C-Sec. It's not like we're on Omega. The authorities here can deal with her."

"It may not be that simple," the asari said. "Whoever this quarian is, she's unique. If I had to guess, I would say that she's a bounty hunter, based just on her equipment and how careful she was. She's too skilled to be just a mercenary, but not ruthless enough to be an assassin."

"How does that make anything less simple?" Colleen asked.

"Because bounty hunters have a sort of immunity," Bionus said with a bit of a grumble. "They can go pretty much wherever they want, but they are responsible for themselves. If this quarian is a bounty hunter, and we turn her over to C-Sec, in their eyes she's broken no laws. They'll let her go and we'll be back to square one."

Colleen seem rather shocked and baffled by this bit of news. "But, why? That's crazy!"

"It's the way things are, colony girl," Renarra said, crossing her arms. "But it also means that we're free to do whatever we want in order to figure out what's going on."

Bionus nodded. Though the bounty hunter, if she was indeed that, had the right to come aboard the Astral Hind and do what she wanted, he as a captain also had the right to restrain her and do whatever he thought would ensure the safety of his crew. But what would that be? Simply turning her in to C-Sec would do no good, as Renarra had already pointed out. They couldn't keep her tied up forever though. She would be a drain on resources, a quite unwanted drain at that.

It seemed as though there was only one real option. Bionus could talk things over with the quarian, and see if there was some way that he could remove the bounty from whoever it was on. That was going to be a tricky thing though. It was a very real possibility that the bounty hunter would be incredibly resistant to that, if only because she would want to collect the bounty and earn some money. Bounty hunting was a legitimate profession, and a somewhat lucrative one if the individual practicing it was skilled. If this bounty hunter was skilled like Renarra said she was, then she was probably going to want to bring in her bounty and earn credits for it.

"We'll have to talk to her," the turian said at last, looking back at Colleen and Renarra. "I'll see if we can't figure out what she was doing in the first place, then try to get some kind of resolution."

"How do we know she won't try anything?" Colleen asked.

Renarra took out a shotgun and handed Colleen a pistol. "I'll go in with the captain. You stay outside just in case."

Bionus nodded. "I'll need some of your help, Renarra. I don't have a lot of experience with bounty hunters."

The asari nodded. "Right."

The captain turned and walked over to the door to Renarra's room, where the quarian had been locked up. Renarra and Colleen were right behind him. The human held on to her pistol with a tight grip. The asari simply draped her shotgun over her arm, looking somewhat impassive with the whole thing. Bionus opened the door and walked into the room, Renarra following behind him. When they were inside, Colleen shut the door behind them.

The quarian looked up at them from the chair she had been bound to. It was impossible to tell just what her emotions were, since her face was hidden behind the darkened visor of her environmental suit. For all Bionus knew, she could be smiling, though he highly doubted it.

Renarra took up a position to the right of the chair, leaning against the wall somewhat lazily. Though the asari seemed to be almost relaxed, Bionus knew enough about her that this was a conscious effort to appear this way on her part. The turian himself simply stood in front of the quarian with his hands behind his back. He looked her over appraisingly for a moment. Though she was a tad unimpressive as she was now, Bionus had seen the equipment that Renarra had relieved her of. A tactical cloak, a high-powered pneumatic launcher, gas grenades, and a stun rod. What she lacked in physical prowess she made up for in technological sophistication.

Bionus looked over at Renarra and gave her a nod. She nodded in return, then spoke. "Do you come as hunter?" she asked the quarian.

The quarian was quiet for a moment. "I come as tracker, as captor, as killer, as victor," she said at last.

Renarra nodded to Bionus. He sighed. "So, you are a bounty hunter."

"Such astute observations," the quarian said, the hint of sarcasm hanging in her voice. "You are a marvel to behold."

Bionus chuckled. "Flattery gets you nowhere," he said. "Though it would seem you don't need it to get on my ship in the first place."

"That was nothing. You left it quite unguarded."

"So you thought," the turian said. "But I've been around long enough to know you leave nothing unguarded. Not even on the Citadel. Renarra happens to be all the guard that I need. Though it would also seem that you became acquainted with that as well."

"Is that a favorite phrase of yours?" the quarian inquired. "'Though it would seem'?"

"Not particularly," Bionus said. "I'm just making observations. I don't know everything about this situation. No point in appearing like I know anything for certain. That's why there's a lot of 'though it would seem' being tossed around. You could help alleviate that, though."

"You think I'm just going to tell you everything you want to know right off the bat? You think I'm just going to spill my entire life story because you ask me some simple question?"

Bionus shook his head. "Of course not. That's unrealistic. All I want to know is who you are and which of my crew has a bounty on their head."

"And what makes you think I'm going to tell you that?" the quarian asked.

"Because we're both professionals, though our professions are greatly different," Bionus said. "I'm willing to offer double on whatever bounty they have on their head. You can pay off the individual who originally put the bounty on them, and still get paid."

The quarian paused at this. "You would set yourself back that much for one of your crew?"

"I would," Bionus said.

The quarian was quiet for a moment, thinking over this new set of developments. Then she shrugged her shoulders. "I still get paid," she said. "Might as well. My name is Lubaj'Minos vas Early. I am here for the bounty on one Gorot Vi Vissis Hin Tac Ind Bordo Naviss, a salarian."

Bionus paused, his mind running over these new bits of information. What was his pilot doing with a bounty on his head? Naviss was not generally the sort of individual who would go around getting into that kind of trouble. The captain thought about this for a moment or two before he realized that the quarian had said something else extremely pertinent. Her name. If Bionus had not been mistaken, and he had no reason to think that he was, that was Kendo's surname and ship name that the bounty hunter had given him. Who was she in relation to him? Was she family?

"You have this Naviss aboard your ship," the quarian said, interrupting the turian's train of thought. "You would not pause as you do if you did not."

Bionus took a breath and let it out slowly. Then he looked over at Renarra and motioned to the door. The asari nodded and began to leave. The captain, meanwhile, looked back at the quarian.

"Give me some time," he said to her. "I must make proper arrangements."

"I'm not going anywhere," the bounty hunter said, her darkened visor still not betraying her mood.

Knowing that he was going to have to be satisfied with this, Bionus turned and walked out of the room after Renarra. He shut the door behind him, leaving he and the other two standing there in the hallway.

"I think this just got quite a bit more complicated than it might already have been," the turian said.

"What did you learn?" Colleen asked.

"The bounty hunter's here for Naviss," Renarra said, taking her pistol back from Colleen. "But that's not all. She also says she's some kind of relation to Kendo."

Colleen frowned in puzzlement. "Kendo?" she asked.

Bionus nodded. "Her name is Lubaj'Minos vas Early. Same family name, same ship name. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say she's either his mother or his aunt. Either way, it's put a new spin on things."

"So what do we do about it?" Colleen asked. "I mean, we can't just go telling Kendo about this."

"Why not?" Renarra asked. "He might know something about this Lubaj that would prove useful."

Bionus was quiet for a moment, then nodded his head. "I agree. I'll go talk to him and see just who it might be. But I don't want him in the same room as her. If they are blood relation, there's a good chance she could manipulate him and use him against us."

Colleen nodded. "What about Naviss?"

"You can go approach him about that," Bionus said. "Renarra, I need you to go check on the Cat and make sure he's still doing all right."

The two nodded and moved off to their respective tasks without another word. Bionus sighed. This was too much excitement for him. He'd taken up being captain of a freighter transport to get away from stuff like this. Fate seemed hell-bent on dumping him right into it anyway. He shook his head, then headed off towards the engine room to talk to Kendo.

_And yet another update! _

_Once again, my fast pacing takes us through that entire exchange in a breeze. But we did learn something! Namely, the name of our mysterious quarian bounty hunter. If you look closely, you will notice that her name is a reference to another bounty hunter. Whoever can guess just who that is gets a shout-out in a future update! Yay tests of pop-culture knowledge!_

_Next update, more Bionus and Kendo talking! I like those two the most out of any of the other characters. Kendo especially. He's like my author avatar in this whole story, the one out of the entire crew that I feel is the most like me. Bionus, well, Bionus is who I would like to be. He's ultimately altruistic, and cares greatly about his crew. He's a good, and mostly incorruptible person. And personally, I don't feel like that's too unrealistic. Cause he's got some history to him. We just haven't gotten the chance to see it yet. Give it another couple arcs and we'll get there though. Next arc will be tying up Renarra's guilt over Mira, and will also be chock full of Star Wars homages. Yay, homages!_


	18. Rain Chapter 5

Kendo had gone to the engine room when Bionus had brought the both of them back from the bar. He'd seemed somewhat disappointed that the little excursion had been cut short, though Bionus had to admit that it was somewhat hard for him to tell on account of the environmental suit.

The captain walked into the engine room. The quarian technician was there, working on a small piece of equipment with his omni-tool. He glanced up at Bionus and nodded.

"Thanks for letting me get out," Kendo said as he looked back to what he was working on. "I mean, for as short a time as it was."

Bionus nodded and leaned against the wall on the other side of the room. "We'll try to get you out again sometime soon."

"Look, it's all right," Kendo said. "I get that a problem came up. I'm not a complete idiot."

Bionus put his hand over his face and shook his head. "I'm trying to be nice to you, Kendo. You're making that awfully hard."

"I don't want you feeling all guilty over this though. I'll see you standing around and moping and asking me if I want to go find a quarian-friendly place at every port we'll go to, and I don't want that cause then the rest of the crew will start asking questions and making very incorrect assumptions about you and me."

This last little bit made Bionus grumble a little. Nevertheless, he just shook his head again and didn't say anything else on it. "All right then."

Kendo nodded. "So, was there anything else you wanted?"

Bionus waited a moment before answering, biting his tongue so that he didn't chew out Kendo too badly for this. While the young quarian's attitude was not the best at this moment, the captain wanted to get the current problem of the bounty hunter solved before he tried to tackle the one with Kendo.

"We had an intruder," the turian said. "A quarian bounty hunter."

Kendo paused. He put down what he was working on and slowly looked up at Bionus. "A quarian bounty hunter?" he asked, putting some emphasis on the last two words.

Bionus nodded. "She confirmed it for us."

The young quarian sat back in silence for a moment. "Huh," he said at last. "That's a new one on me."

Bionus nodded again. "But that's not all there is. She's related to you."

This got a reaction out of Kendo. He looked up at Bionus very quickly. "Say what?"

"She's related to you. Her name is Lubaj'Minos vas Early. I'm not an expert on your culture, but I know enough to know that she's got your family name."

Kendo didn't say anything for a bit, simply fiddling with his omni-tool and looking straight ahead. Bionus waited patiently. He gathered from the young quarian's reaction that this bounty hunter was indeed familiar to him, though in what context was still unknown.

"She's my mom," Kendo said at last with a sigh, shutting off his omni-tool and putting his head in his hands.

Bionus was somewhat intrigued by this. "Your mother?"

"Yeah."

The captain paused and waited for Kendo to say something else, wondering if perhaps there was something that he felt like revealing. When the young quarian remained silent, he spoke up again. "Do you know her?"

Kendo shook his head. "She left the fleet again when I was very young. Never really came back. Just didn't fit in, you know? Dad told me about her. She's very... obtuse? I think that's the word I'm looking for."

Bionus thought this was rather odd. "She came out and told us what she wanted right away."

"Well, based on what I heard, that might be incorrect. She could very well be lying to you."

The captain nodded. "It's not unlikely. Do you think you could find a way to get the truth out of her?"

Kendo was quiet for a moment, still holding his head in his hand. Bionus thought about simply leaving him alone and trying to figure that out himself. But at last the young quarian looked up at him.

"I'll give it a shot," he said with a sigh. "Can't say I'll do perfect, but I'll sure try."

Bionus nodded and walked over to the door. "That's all I'm asking for." He motioned with his head for Kendo to follow. "Let's go."

* * *

Renarra knocked on the door to the Cat's room. She hoped that he was asleep, resting off the effects of the stun-rod. She was not particularly in the mood for cajoling people. Things were still weighing on her mind.

There was the sound of someone fumbling inside the room, and the door slid open. The Cat stood there, looking at Renarra. She took a moment or two trying to gauge what kind of shape he was in. His metal prosthetic face meant that she had no emotions to read, but being a mercenary had taught her that there were other ways to tell how someone was feeling. His stance was somewhat slouched, and his breathing was a tad shallow. All in all, she had to say that he seemed somewhat out of it.

"What is it?" the Cat asked the asari.

"Captain told me to come by and see how you were doing."

The Cat shook his head as though trying to clear his mind. "I'm doing better, though I'm still pretty sore. Thanks for stopping by though."

Renarra nodded. "Stun-prods will really knock the fight out of you for a while, especially if you've never really been hit with one before, or you're weak from something else. I'd say you fall under both criteria."

"Only the last one," the Cat said.

"Oh? When was the other time you got hit like that?"

"A time I don't feel like talking about at the moment. Right now I'd really just like to go back and try to recover my strength."

Renarra's curiosity had been piqued by the Cat's comment, but she shrugged her shoulders at his dismissal. If he didn't want to talk about it, the asari could handle that. It wasn't like she went around telling everybody about herself anyway. "I'll let you get to it then."

The Cat nodded. "Thank you for checking though. I... appreciate it." And with that, he shut the door. Renarra did not waste any time standing there, but headed back to the common room, to keep an eye on where the bounty hunter had been locked up. Even though this new quarian had been secured, she didn't particularly trust her anyway.

* * *

Colleen walked up into the cockpit and looked over at Naviss. The pilot was sitting in the seat as he always did. He rarely ever left it except to go and exercise at least once while they were at a port, or to eat with the rest of the crew. It was a veritable fortress of solitude for him, though the human wondered just how much he really needed it.

The salarian looked to her. "Ah, First Mate Gainsborough. I heard about your unfortunate encounter with the intruder. Wish I could have helped. But I would have been poorly matched, I think. I am not that much of a fighter, you see."

Colleen waited for the pilot to finish speaking, trying her best not to show impatience as he practically waded through his words. "It may be a bit worse than you think," she said to him.

"What makes you say that?"

"This intruder is a bounty hunter. And she is looking to claim a bounty on your head."

Naviss paused, a look of surprise quite evident on his face. "What? A bounty? On my head?"

"It's more likely than you think," Colleen said. "This is a big galaxy, after all."

"Individuals are always informed of when bounties are put on them, though," Naviss said, beginning to fret a little. "Especially before the bounty hunters come. It gives them a chance to make things right."

"Can you think of anything you did wrong?" Colleen asked. "Anything worth a bounty being put on your head?"

The salarian thought for a moment or two. "No. No I cannot. I've not been one to get into bad business. I'm just the pilot. The only other person I've flown for other than Captain Bionus is my twin brother. True, he wasn't the most legitimate individual, but he didn't do anything worthy of a bounty."

Colleen frowned, crossing her arms and looking back down the hallway, thinking of the bounty hunter that they had locked away. This was getting more unusual by the minute. At last, she looked back to Naviss. "Stay here in the cockpit," she said. "Bionus is trying to find out more from this bounty hunter. This is the best place for you to stay out of her sight."

Naviss nodded, still seeming somewhat worried. "That sounds like sound advice indeed, First Mate Gainsborough."

Colleen nodded and walked out of the cockpit. "Don't worry. We'll get this sorted out," she said before the door shut behind her.

* * *

_And yet another update!_

_ So, looks like Kendo's mom is a regular Jango Fett. Does this mean that our young quarian engineer gets to be Boba? Cause that would be awesome. _

_ Also, screentime for the Cat and Naviss! They're the two most neglected characters, I find. I think I'm going to need to think up some story arcs that involve them to a better degree. I really need to let them have a chance to shine._


	19. Rain Chapter 6

Bionus and Kendo stood in front of Lubaj. The young quarian looked at his mother, though just what he was thinking could not be determined. Bionus could guess at his emotions on occasion, through visual cues not related to the expressions on a face, but he had never seen Kendo like this before. He was very quiet and still, simply looking at his mother.

After a minute or two of silence, Lubaj and Kendo began to speak with each other in the quarian language. Bionus couldn't understand a word of it. Quarian was not spoken much outside of the Migrant Fleet, and it was not readily taught to outsiders anymore. But instead of interrupting the conversation, he decided to wait and see just what Kendo might learn. He didn't doubt his technician's loyalty.

At last, the conversation ended and Kendo looked back to Bionus. The turian motioned to the door with a nod of his head, and the quarian opened it. The two exited the room, leaving Lubaj alone.

"Well, what did she say?" Bionus asked as the two of them sat down at the table.

"Well, she is who she says she is," Kendo said after a brief pause. "Details match up and everything."

Bionus nodded. "We have to keep her tied up, you know," he said to the young quarian. "At least until we can figure out why there is a bounty on Naviss's head."

"Yeah," Kendo said absentmindedly. "I get it, yeah."

Bionus frowned a little. "Did she tell you anything else?"

The young quarian shook his head. "Nothing useful."

"What did she say?"

Kendo shrugged. "Just asked me a bunch of questions. How I was doing, why was I here, that sort of thing. Typical parent stuff, I guess."

Bionus picked up on the hesitation in his voice, but kept his thoughts on the matter to himself. "Think you'll be able to find out anything."

"Don't know. It's not like I'm that familiar with her, Captain."

"I understand that, Kendo, but keep in mind that I'm trying to figure out why Naviss has a bounty on his head. She's my best bet for that."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kendo said, tapping his finger on the table.

Bionus got up and walked over to the cabinets. He figured that Kendo was in a bit of a strange state at the moment, and knew that he probably shouldn't be asking so much of him at a time like this. But the young quarian's feelings had to wait at the moment. Later, after this business of the bounty on Naviss's head was cleared up, then maybe he would let Kendo and his mother talk.

The turian opened up one of the cabinets and began to rustle through what was in there. After a minute or so he found a canister of DP-based drink. He got it and a glass out and turned back to Kendo.

"Want something, before we go back in there?" he asked.

The quarian was quiet for a moment. "Eh, couldn't hurt," he said.

Bionus nodded and poured himself a drink from the canister before he handed it to Kendo. The quarian simply hooked it up to the front of his helmet and drank it straight. The turian shook his head at this, smirking.

"Can't you just pour it into something first?"

Kendo shook his head. "And have to take off my helmet first? You sound like you want to get me killed, Captain."

"It would be a noble death, I would think. Even though it meant certain death, you did not hesitate to be mannerly."

"Noble and quarians don't exactly go hand in hand," Kendo said with a bit of a chuckle.

"That's odd," Colleen said as she walked into the common room from the cockpit hallway. "I would have thought you would say your race was noble."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kendo asked suspiciously, turning to look at the human woman.

"I think what Colleen means is that she would have thought you would say that quarians are quite noble, since a noble spirit is quite a positive trait."

Kendo shrugged, but relaxed a little. "Well, I just don't see being noble as being as good as everyone says it is," he replied. "If you're noble, people look up to you all the time. But they also watch you. You can't do a single thing out of line, or someone will notice. And then, if you happen to slip, it's worse than a regular person slipping, all just because you were noble."

"That's a rather cynical way to look at it," Colleen remarked.

Kendo was quiet for a moment, crossing his arms as though he was thinking. "Have you ever heard the stories of 'Kekkin'Varkek the Noble'?" he asked.

Colleen shook her head. "Who was he?"

"A great explorer in quarian history," Kendo explained. "The tales of his journeys were very well known by all our people. He was always stopping and helping others, always trying to look out for the little people. We had a group, the Varkek Clerics, who did their best to try to emulate him in every possible way. They were quite numerous. We were quite known for our noble spirit as a result of our stories of Kekkin'Varkek."

"What happened?" Colleen asked.

"The geth happened. Our homeworld and all our allies were lost to us in one fell stroke."

Colleen waited for a moment, as if expecting Kendo to say something further. When he did not, she spoke up again. "And? What does that mean?"

Kendo unhooked the canister from his mouth. "What good did all our noble spirit do then?" he asked her curtly. Then, not even expecting an answer in return, he looked back to Bionus. "I'll go in and see if she knows anything more, all right Captain?"

Bionus nodded, deciding to let the matter of Kendo's animosity towards Colleen pass for the time being. The young quarian nodded, then turned and opened the door to the room where Lubaj was being kept. Colleen watched him carefully as he walked in and shut the door behind him.

"Did you see that?" she asked Bionus when she thought that Kendo could not hear her. "All I did was ask a question."

Bionus took a deep breath. "I'm surprised he acted as he did."

"Then why didn't you do anything?"

"Because I expected him to act worse than that."

Colleen paused, then shook her head. "He can't get much worse than that."

"He can," Bionus said. "You should have heard the things he was saying to the thugs that were assaulting him the night I recruited him. Believe me, Kendo is capable of saying far worse than just telling you a story."

Colleen frowned and let out a long breath. "I just don't get it," she said.

Bionus got up and put away the drink canister. "Are you trying to understand it?" he asked Colleen as he put the cup in the disposer."

"Yes."

"Are you? Or are you just trying to reconcile it with your views?"

She raised her eyebrow. "Isn't that the same thing?"

Bionus shook his head and leaned against the counter. "You're trying to see this on your terms and come out on top. That's not going to work."

Colleen got up, still shaking her head. "I still say he need to learn some respect."

"He knows what respect is," Bionus said. "He just wants a better reason to give it."

"You said for him to. Isn't that good enough?"

"Kendo's not going to just give someone anything because he's told. If you want him to really respect you, you have to really give him a reason. And unless he starts openly being hostile to you, that's how it is going to stay. I'm not going to kick him off the ship for stuff like what just happened, and I'm not going to sit around and be his father either."

Colleen was quiet now. Bionus could see that she was feeling somewhat rebuked by what he had said. That was all right with him though. She needed to know that he wasn't going to just make Kendo do anything; that she was going to have to work with the quarian if she really wanted him to respect her. That was one of the few problems he saw with humans. They tended to be a bit more imposing with their opinions than most other races. Colleen was just having a bit of a conflict as a result of that viewpoint. It didn't worry Bionus too much though. He'd seen other humans put it aside, and he was sure that Colleen had the capacity to do so as well.

* * *

_And, another weekly update!_

_For those of you who noticed the phrase "DP-based drink" and wondered what it meant, it means "dextro-protein based drink", since both Bionus and Kendo can't have regular food and beverages and whatnot. I couldn't think of a better way to put it, though now that I have thought it up I may very well keep referring to certain things as "DP-based". It wouldn't be too out of place. After all, "ezee" stands for element zero in this universe, so it's not like there isn't convenient shortening of words going on anyway._

_Shoot, I need to figure out ways so that there's less talking. I mean, way less. Or, maybe figure out things to put in between the words, break them up. Cause that's a lot of dialogue for this update. A lot of dialogue._


	20. Rain Chapter 7

Kendo stepped into the room where his mother was and shut the door behind him. She looked up at him as he walked in front of her. The two quarians were silent at first, each simply looking over the other and trying to gauge them. With environment suits, this was a tough endeavor. But quarians were better at it than most, given the fact that they had dealt with such situations throughout their entire lives.

At last though, Kendo spoke. "So, how have you been?"

"Well enough," Lubaj replied. She looked down at her bonds. "I've been better, but enough about that. You're on your Pilgrimage, I take it."

Kendo nodded. "Bionus lets me run with him while I try to find something worth hauling back."

Lubaj nodded in understanding. "Good, good. Always good to find some soul out there willing to take one of us in. Baby us along and everything."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kendo asked, his voice taking on a harsher tone.

"You know full and well what it means," Lubaj said, looking right up at her son. "All our people are always trying to scrounge off of others in order to survive. Look at the Migrant Fleet. Fifty thousand ships, most of them scavenged, all being repaired with what handouts we can come across. Our young people are sent out on Pilgrimages to acquire what things the galaxy deigns to let them have. It is disgusting."

Kendo paused at this. He wasn't quite prepared for this. "Hey, I don't like having to do it. But I'm luckier than most."

"I'm not blaming you," Lubaj said, rolling her neck. "I'm blaming our ways. One mistake made us weak. We bowed before the geth, we bowed before the Council, and we've become a wreck of our former selves, tied to the goodness of others."

"I fail to see how bounty hunting isn't depending on others," Kendo said as he crossed his arms, quite annoyed with how this was turning out.

"There is power in the hunt," Lubaj said. Her voice grew somewhat quieter at this, as though suddenly she was somewhere else. "There is power in following after someone, watching their moves, exploiting their weaknesses. Your strength overcomes them. It's freeing."

Kendo was quiet now. He'd not really heard any quarian speak like that before. Then again, one of the few things that his father had said about his mother was that she was quite different. He'd always said that her thoughts had been distinctly un-quarian, and that she had eventually left both the Migrant Fleet and her family for that very reason. She hadn't been driven out, Kendo's father had always pointed that out, but she had left of her own accord. He had always wondered what had happened to her after she left him. Kendo had never much bothered about it. His aunt had taken up the slack, since she'd had no children of her own, and that had worked out just fine for everyone involved. He figured he'd send word to his father about this meeting though, if only to satisfy the elder quarian's curiosity.

Lubaj cocked her head to the side and looked at her son. "You are puzzled by what I say."

"I'm puzzled by you period," Kendo replied, leaning back against the wall.

"Why should you be puzzled by me? I'm your mother."

"Whom I've never really known," the young quarian pointed out.

"Why should that matter?" Lubaj asked. "I am a part of you, whether you know me or not. Why should you be puzzled by that which is a part of you?"

Kendo shook his head. "Sharing some common biology and genetics does not equal knowledge."

"It does for most mated pairs."

The young quarian paused at this. The philosophy that Lubaj was throwing at him was beginning to hurt his head. That last bit had also squicked him out a little. "Look, why can't you just talk straight?"

"I am," Lubaj said.

"You're throwing a bunch of _vehk'nar _gobbley-gook at me," Kendo said. "You've not simply asked me how I'm doing or anything."

"Excuse me, it's just simply very hard to be concerned about the affairs of others while you are bound to a chair."

"You think it would be easy for a mother," Kendo said. He held up his hand though. "No, don't reply to that. I don't want to know what random bit of crap you'll come up with."

Lubaj looked up at the ceiling. "Are you feeling resentful?"

Kendo shook his head. "It's hard to resent something that you never really missed. I never got the chance to get attached to you, and Ceae took care of what you weren't there to do."

The bounty hunter nodded. "Good boy."

"What do you mean?"

"If it's not broken, don't say it is. That's been one of my philosophies for quite a while, and I can see that it is simple enough for you to understand as well."

"I can understand complex stuff," Kendo said, turning back to the door. "It's just that I prefer to keep my mind on the task at hand, and not fill it with all this randomness that benefits no one."

Lubaj laughed. "Oh, it benefits me."

The young quarian paused. "What do you mean?"

Suddenly there was a moderate surge of electricity from Lubaj's suit, almost as if there was an overload in her shields. Kendo covered his eyes at the flash, stepping back against the door. No sooner had he done that though, than he felt himself being dragged forward and whipped around rather forcefully. He tried to fight back, but that earned him a sharp rap on the side of his environment helmet. That jarred him into compliance. Lubaj put her hand up to his neck. Kendo froze when he saw a four foot blade sticking out from a gauntlet on her wrist.

"Code words for the surge system in the suit," Lubaj said with something approaching giddiness. "Now, where is the one called Naviss?"

* * *

_Dun dun duuuuuuun! A dramatic escape is underway by our odd quarian bounty hunter. _

_For those of you who may have noticed it in this chapter and in a previous one, the word "vehk'nar" means something akin to the f-word in my made up quarian language. Yay for cursing and yet not cursing!_

_Expect this arc to tie up in the next two or three updates._

_Also, played through Mass Effect 2! FINALLY! So I now feel I can comment on things that happen in it with slightly more impunity. For those of you who are interested, I played a female Shepard with the Spacer/War Hero background, Council saved at the end of Mass Effect, Anderson made Human Councilor, Wrex surviving Virmire, Paragon. I made it through the suicide mission without loosing anyone, even though I botched Zaeed's loyalty mission and he wasn't loyal to me, and destroyed the Collector base rather than let Cerebus have it. Romanced Garrus. Overall very satisfied by the game. I need to get ahold of some money so I can get more of the DLC, particularly Kasumi Goto. I want to try to do a story arc with her in it, just cause I can._


	21. Rain Chapter 8

Colleen and Renarra sat across from each other. The asari drank some beer and paid no mind to the human. Her mind was elsewhere, wandering in memories. Colleen did not bother her, preferring instead to keep her eyes on the door to the room that Kendo and Lubaj were in. She didn't trust the bounty hunter, and she only had slightly more trust in the engineer.

But when the door slid open and Lubaj came out with Kendo as her hostage, both the human and the asari sprung to their feet. Renarra had a pistol drawn in the blink of an eye. The bounty hunter pressed her gauntlet blade against the neck of her son's environment suit.

"Let go of the kid," the asari said, pointing her gun right at Lubaj's head.

"You shouldn't have sent him in," the bounty hunter said. "He was stupid enough to free me."

Kendo struggled at this. "What? No!"

"Don't try to lie, kid," Lubaj continued. "You thought I was going to be motherly for you. Well, look where that got you."

Colleen frowned. What the bounty hunter was saying struck a particular chord with her. "Kendo, so help me, if you let her go, I will throw you out of this ship myself."

"I didn't!" Kendo yelled, still trying to struggle as best he could with a blade at his throat.

Lubaj kept the knife where it was. "Unless you want to see him bleed out, I suggest you bring me my bounty. Now."

This troubled Colleen. "You'd kill your own son?"

"I said, get me my bounty, or he dies." The bounty hunter pressed the blade right up against Kendo's environment suit.

For a few moments, no one said anything. Kendo's breaths were short and nervous. Lubaj was simply reserved and in control, not the least bit phased by having a gun pointed at her head. Colleen frowned, though it was not apparent if Lubaj or Kendo was the primary reason for her displeasure. Renarra remained impassive, just as cool and as calm as the bounty hunter.

At last, the asari spoke. "Colleen, go get Naviss."

The human turned and gave Renarra a puzzled look. "What?"

"You heard me. Go and get Naviss."

Colleen paused, not liking the way that Renarra was simply ordering her around. Part of her wanted to remind the asari that Colleen was the one in charge. But the human remembered that Renarra had been doing this sort of thing since before she was born. Though she was Bionus's second in command, Renarra was the more experienced one. So she nodded her head and began to slowly move towards the cockpit. Lubaj kept Kendo between herself and the human as this occurred, still using her son as leverage.

When Colleen had gone up to the cockpit, Renarra spoke again. "Still had a trick or two up your sleeve, I see," she said, taking care not to let her aim wander from the bounty hunter's head.

"I would be a poor hunter if I did not," Lubaj remarked.

"I wasn't talking about however it was you got out of your bonds," the asari said. "Kendo has his moments, but I doubt he's as dumb as you're saying he is."

Kendo sighed. "At least someone believes me."

"Shut up, kid," Renarra said. "The big people are talking right now."

Lubaj chuckled a little. "I see you know him quite well then," she remarked, keeping the knife blade where it was. "Tell me, has he fallen for your charm yet, asari?"

"Hardly more than any other adolescent would," Renarra replied. "But I've had a talk with him about that. Haven't I, Kendo?"

The younger quarian nodded quite enthusiastically. He remembered that conversation vividly, when the asari had caught him taking one too many looks at her ample busom. It had involved a knife, just as this conversation was involving one, except that time the blade was wandering very close to something that he considered incredibly precious to him at this point in his life. Ever since then he had taken great care to treat Renarra with respect.

The asari chuckled. "See? He knows what the limits are."

The bounty hunter laughed. "You are one who doesn't brook any nonsense, I see. I approve."

"Of course, you do know that this means this whole exchange is just pissing me off," Renarra said, keeping her voice level. She narrowed her eyes just a little, as though examining her aim on Lubaj's head to verify her shot. "Why don't you tell me who has the bounty on Naviss's head, hunter?"

Lubaj shook her head. "I would be a very poor hunter if I divulged the identity of my employer." She tilted her head to the side, almost in contemplation. "Besides, what would you do with it anyway?"

"Invoke the right to try to appease them," Renarra said.

For a moment things were quiet. Then the bounty hunter began to laugh. "You think you can appease my employer?" she asked. "I've half a mind to let you try, though I can tell you right now you'll get absolutely nowhere. He doesn't want Naviss because of some bad debt. Naviss double-crossed him, and he wants to show people what happens when you double-cross him."

Renarra nodded. "I see. Tell me, when did Naviss double-cross him?"

"Just a few months ago," Lubaj replied. "Was supposed to deliver a crate of firearms to him, but decided to cut and run with the whole shipment."

"I was here, on this ship, a few months ago," Naviss said. Renarra and Lubaj turned towards him. He was standing in the doorway that led from the cockpit, with Colleen behind him watching the whole scene somewhat apprehensively. "The flight records will indicate that."

"Those things can be falsified," the bounty hunter said. "Now get over here, or your engineer gets my blade in his throat."

"But I insist that I have been in the employ of Bionus Enrikian for the past five years," Naviss said, though he was walking over to Lubaj as he said this. "I don't know who you're looking for, but it is not me. This is a terrible misunderstanding."

"I'm sure," Lubaj replied, sounding impatient that this was taking so long.

"Do you really want to take the chance that it isn't?" Renarra asked.

"I can't see how it would be bad for me if it is true," Lubaj replied as Naviss stood beside her, looking apprehensively at her blade. She looked from him, to Renarra. "Put that gun away."

"Renarra, don't," Colleen said from where she stood. "We can't loose the advantage."

"You have no advantage," the bounty hunter said. "Put the gun away, asari, or I kill Kendo."

Renarra looked around again, gauging her options. She was not being paid to let things happen to the crew. She was being paid to break people if they so much as thought about hurting Bionus or anyone he had employed. However, doing anything would mean people got hurt. If she didn't do what the bounty hunter said, then Kendo would most assuredly be killed. But if she let Naviss go with her, then he was going to get killed.

Then the asari noticed something. There was a shadow coming from the hallway just to Lubaj's left. It was the shadow of someone who was taking great pains not to be seen, and who had some skill in it. Renarra took note of it without letting Lubaj know just what she had seen. She did not know who it was that was there, but she did not have a lot of options at the moment and this seemed like the best one.

"All right," the asari said, slowly beginning to lower her pistol.

"Renarra, do not take your weapon off of her!" Colleen said.

"You don't write my paychecks, lady, I don't have to do what you say." Renarra set the pistol down on the floor, and kicked it away behind her. "There. It's down."

Lubaj nodded. "Good. I'm glad you can see the sensible thing to do."

The bounty hunter took her knife away from Kendo's neck and kicked him forward, moving to put it against Naviss's throat. But as she did so, whoever had been hiding in the hallway moved forward. They lunged and hit Lubaj hard, knocking her off balance. Renarra ran forward, intent on helping subdue the bounty hunter. She tossed Naviss aside as she did so, doing her best to get him out of harm's way. Colleen ran back and grabbed the pistol that Renarra had kicked away, ready to use it if need be.

The Cat was straddling Lubaj, keeping the arm that had the blade on it firmly pinned behind the bounty hunter's back. Renarra almost stopped in her tracks in surprise, but her long honed instincts for such circumstances kicked in and she kept moving to help the Cat secure the quarian. The human pulled one of his hands back into a fist and gave Lubaj a hard blow on the side of the head..

"See how you like hard knocks," he said to her, no small amount of disdain in his voice.

* * *

_New update! This one was rather slow coming along for some reason, and so I'm sort of unsure about it. If there's something about it that looks incredibly out of place, will you guys let me know? I would really appreciate it._

_ Also, new developments! Got all the DLC for Mass Effect 2 now, which means I've played through both Stolen Memory and Project Overlord. I approve of both. I was not expecting Kasumi to be as awesome as she was. I mean, yeah, if Shepard's looking to recruit someone they're not going to be a pushover, but I didn't expect her to turn into Spider-Woman and jump onto a gunship. She's now definitely one of my more favorite characters. Project Overlord was also good. It felt good to be running around on the surface of a planet again, even if it isn't in the Mako. As frustrating as it was to drive that thing around in the first Mass Effect, I still miss it._

_ Also, wrote a short one-shot fanfic involving Tali, Garrus, Kasumi, and Legion! It's called, "How to Lead by Example" and you can find it in my portfolio. I think I goofed though. I put down that Tali and Legion were the two main characters in it, since the story kind of revolves around Tali working with Legion for a common goal. Well, apparently that may be getting interpreted as it being a Tali/Legion slashfic. And I kind of don't do that. FemShep/Garrus is the only pairing I will touch upon. I don't even think Tali/Legion is even realistic. So, yeah._

_ It felt weird to write a fic with canon characters though. I've refrained from it for so long because I was afraid I would mangle them, and then everyone would hate me for it. But, finally, I had a story idea that wouldn't leave, and so I had to write it out. I hope it's satisfactory, and I hope you guys will swing by and give it a chance._


End file.
